Vermillion and Umber
by Greenaleydis
Summary: In the aftermath of the battle, a band of students volunteer to restore Hogwarts to its former glory. Amidst the cleanup, Hermione finds herself sharing the library with Draco Malfoy as he repairs the school's historic paintings. But soon they're forced to discover the true magic behind enchanted art - and each other - from behind the canvas. Dramione, rated M.
1. Ochre

_**~:~ Vermillion and Umber ~:~**_

 _"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."—Thomas Merton_

 **Chapter One: Ochre**

The library had never looked so bright.

It could have been the fact that all the curtains had burned to ash, their ragged edges curled and singed into scraps. It could have been the broken stained glass glittering on the path-worn carpet, failing to shield the interior from the sun.

It also could have been the fallen shelves, bent and splintered, covering piles of ancient books, torn and sodden.

Despite the sunlight this was not a heartwarming sight; Hermione sighed heavily as she surveyed the damage, her heart clenching as she saw her favorite section entirely demolished by a rogue spell, a hole carved right through the bookcase.

McGonagall cleared her throat quietly to get Hermione's attention.

"Unfortunately, with our good Madam gone, gods rest her... you are the one who knows these shelves the best, my dear," she said, her small, fierce eyes trained on the broken front desk.

Hermione nodded slowly, looking away before her gaze could snag on any more memories of a simpler time, before she could tear up properly and embarrass herself in front of her professor.

"I know you'll be busy catching up to take your N.E.W.T.s at the end of the summer, but with the library in utter disarray... "

"Yes, we should get this cleaned up," Hermione sighed. "I'm sure the other students will need it as well."

"Indeed. Let me know if you need anything," McGonagall finished. "And don't worry about putting it back exactly the way it was, I'm sure there was a better way to organize it."

"I'll do my best, Professor."

McGonagall took one last withering look around, pushed her glasses up on her nose, and swished out of the mess.

Left alone in the space, Hermione was struck with the enormity of the task; the library was in shambles, no more than a few of the bookcases still standing. The floor was completely covered with piles of books, rubble, burnt paper, and other debris; the gaping hole in the side of the room carried the breeze in, lifting her hair off her shoulders briefly as she looked at the landscape beyond, rolling hills dipping into the singed dark forest.

She sighed, pushed up her sleeves, and began with the pile in front of her, picking up the dirty books and stacking them. Let's see... _Tales from the Vampire Den_ , a fiction book... _Hogwarts, a History, Fifth Edition_ —yikes, that was old... _A Healer's Guide to Microtransfiguration_ —

Hermione sighed heavily, looking at her short stack. The books were hopelessly mixed together, this would take _weeks_ to sort out.

"Alright there, Hermione?" a voice said, and she turned as Neville edged his way through the space.

"Hi, Neville... just trying to figure out where to start," she answered.

"I need the _Herbologist Ego_ from last month, there was an article about how to clean wortorthal sap... oh..." He looked around at the dilapidated piles, some of which taller than him; a book fell off a nearby shelf, hitting the ground with a loud thud.

"I'm not sure I'd be able to get it for you right now," Hermione sighed.

"No, I wouldn't ask you to do that... I think the Herbology section was..." he turned, his arms raised as he oriented himself in the space with his memory. "If that's the entrance, and this is the front desk... the Herbology section should be..." he walked over to one of the remaining standing shelves.

"This is... Ancient Runes? But..." he looked around. "How is that over _here?_ "

"Neville," Hermione interrupted, "Are there any free volunteers? Anyone twiddling their thumbs? I... I think I'm going to need a hand."

Neville shook his head solemnly. "Not that I saw... everyone is trying to fix the walls right now... Luna is working on the staircases with Padma... and I saw Terry helping Flitwick with the tower... are you going to be okay in here?"

"Yes, I'll be fine... how are the greenhouses doing?"

He looked down at his feet, nudging a large copy of _Ancient Runes Made Easy_ away. "They're... they're awful. Professor Sprout was crying earlier."

Hermione's throat tightened, and she swallowed before she could tear up.

"Um... well, let me know if you see any _Herbologist Ego_ s laying around... or if you see _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ or _Artemis Willow's Anthology of Plants_."

"Of course. See you at dinner."

After a few hours of work, Hermione was able to clear away one of the large piles near the door; there wasn't sufficient space to begin to recategorize the books, but she was trying her best, at least separating the stacks into research journals, fiction books, non-fiction books, and textbooks.

As she spoke the levitation charm for what seemed like the millionth time, moving a shelf off of its leaning position against the wall, a large, gold rectangle suddenly edged through the door, slowly, as if being levitated. Two small feet were behind it.

"Ah, Miss Granger, could you clear a space for some paintings?" Professor Flitwick asked, his wand raised as he concentrated on keeping the massive canvas upright.

Hermione indulged in a moment of admiration at the steady wandwork before quickly stepping over and using a locomotor charm to push the piles of books out of the way; she cringed as the delicate tomes tumbled over each other.

More people came through the door, sporting paintings of every shape and size, broken pieces of gilded frames, and rolled, singed canvasses, splintered wood still attached to the edges.

To Hermione's dismay, they quickly filled the space previously occupied by the book piles; people stacked the paintings one in front of the other while the occupants wept, trying to keep their balance as they were handled.

More volunteers struggled to levitate several enormous paintings into the tall space. One massive canvas took a chunk out of the archway, and the falling stone promptly hit the student in the head, sending her to the floor; Hermione rushed over, her wand out.

"Watch where you're going, Abbot," a familiar voice growled. "That painting is worth more than you."

"That's enough, Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall said tightly, fixing him with a steely glare. "Miss Abbot, please be careful. Madame Pomfrey already has her hands full."

"Of course, Professor, sorry," the girl muttered, shooting a dirty look at Malfoy as he levitated his own large canvas into the high space.

Hermione lowered her wand helplessly. "Professor—as it is, this room is already a complete mess—"

McGonagall crossed her arms, watching the volunteers lean the paintings to the side. "There is no space for these elsewhere at the moment."

"But—a corridor, or the Great Hall—"

"The Great Hall is in full repair, and we don't need the paint fumes making people sick as they eat," McGonagall explained shortly.

"Paint fumes?" Hermione asked.

"Mr. Malfoy is going to repair the paintings, and hopefully locate the missing occupants."

Hermione's heart sank as she watched Malfoy lean his gilded frame against the pile. If he was going to be repairing the paintings in here, it meant...

"Professor, there has to be another place," she reasoned.

McGonagall turned to her, her irritation finally peaked enough to face Hermione directly.

"This is the only place large enough for the bigger paintings."

"But—why is _he_ doing this?"

McGonagall gave her that look—the one that said she was about five seconds away from deducting house points—and replied, "That is none of your concern, Miss Granger, unless he wishes to tell you."

"I see that happening," Hermione muttered.

The brunette witch watched helplessly as painting after painting made its way into her library, until the paintings at the back of the wall were covered with more paintings, all alight with noise as the occupants cried and shouted, tumbling over the objects in their scenes.

As the minutes dragged on, volunteers came and went, depositing more canvases on top of the others. Professor Flitwick came to stand next to her.

"Mr. Malfoy is an accomplished artist, Miss Granger, and the only one here who knows how to refurbish oil paintings," the old wizard said.

"An accomplished..." Hermione trailed off, furrowing her brows.

"Artist. One who creates."

"But..." She tried to recall if she knew this information; sure, she had frequently seen him watching the paintings as the stairs carried him throughout the castle... also, his fantastical drawings of Harry getting battered were a constant nuisance during lectures.

"How—I mean, I never... how did he learn that?"

"How does one learn anything?" the professor continued. "Consistency and dedication in one's practice."

"Yes, but... a professional, or another teacher, or... anyone else..."

The professor gave her a look and shuffled off, leaving Hermione standing among the rubble; the only sound in the room now was the breeze as it blew through the wall, the crying and simpering of the art, and her own breathing. She looked sideways at Malfoy as he surveyed the paintings; there must have been a few hundred of them, some tiny, the size of books, and others fantastically large, stretching towards the ceiling. To his left there was a row of fresh canvases, already stretched and bound neatly; a roll of unstretched canvas lay upon the floor, probably getting dirty with ash and filth.

Malfoy sighed and opened a case at his feet, revealing dozens of paint smeared tubes, long brushes, and vials of oils and solutions clinking together. Underneath lay a simple wooden palette, which he moved aside to get to a cloth.

Hermione opened her mouth to say something to him, to establish clear and decisive boundaries, then thought better of it, turning and walking back into the ruins of the Transfiguration section.

* * *

At dinner that night, Hermione looked around the Great Hall, checking out the progress everyone had made; the bewitched ceiling was still misbehaving, likely because of the broken rafters, exposing the real sky. Luckily it hadn't rained since last week, the day after the battle; if it did rain before the ceiling was repaired, they would likely have to eat in the corridor.

Ron was tucking into his large plate as Neville read a water-wrinkled copy of _Advanced Potion-Making_ , sipping his pumpkin juice; at the table behind him, Mrs. Weasley was conversing quietly with Bill as he rubbed her shoulder, more people eating in silence beside them. Hannah Abbot was nursing the bruise on her forehead with one hand and holding a chicken leg in the other; near her, Terry Boot was trying to respell a shattered Sneakoscope, twisting its gears aimlessly.

"I'm surprised more people didn't come back to retake their N.E.W.T.s," Hermione commented, looking around.

"Nobody wants to go through that twice," Ron scoffed, munching on his chicken.

"Unless the job they want requires doing better than a Dreadful on their Potions exam," Neville mumbled, flipping a page.

"Still aiming to be an Auror?" Ron asked.

Neville shrugged, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to concentrate on his reading.

"I heard Harry got recruited right away," Padma put forth, cutting her food. "Clearly he didn't need any N.E.W.T.s at all."

"I don't think he's actually going to be an Auror. He's just helping Kingsley investigate Malfoy Manor with Savage and Williamson."

At the mention of Malfoy Manor, all six eyes sought out the blond Slytherin at the next table. He sat silently, his plate picked over, his normally smoothed-back hair falling in his eyes.

"He wasn't here yesterday, was he?" Luna asked.

"No, I would have remembered that," Ron grumbled.

"I overheard Professor McGonagall talking to Kingsley about it. Apparently he's stuck here helping, or he'll be shipped off to Azkaban."

"I thought—well, the _Prophet_ said—"

"Are you still bothering with the bloody _Prophet_?"

Ron shrugged, still chewing.

"They made it sound like the trial outcome was pretty buttoned up. I wonder what happened," Hermione mused.

She didn't want to spare her annoying classmate another thought, but as she ate she snuck glances at him, trying to determine what had led the Minister to send him here.

He and his family were detained shortly after the battle; it seemed that they had left the fight immediately and gone home to wait for the outcome. Lucius had been arrested, and his subsequent trial had been swift and straightforward, as there was overwhelming evidence against him. Lady Malfoy had only been fined; she was not Marked, and had been instrumental in ensuring Harry's survival, which Harry pointed out to the Wizengamot earnestly. Harry had also been there during Draco's trial, but had not shared with Hermione exactly what had been said about the Slytherin, or what charges had stuck. The Prophet had reported that Malfoy was under investigation for dealing in illegal artifacts and attempted murder, but it seemed, based on his punishment, that neither charge could be proven.

But if Malfoy had been condemned to community service, this was not the first place Hermione would have chosen to put him.

"I wonder if Malfoy's going to retake his N.E.W.T.s—perhaps that's why he's here?" Hermione murmured.

"Absolutely. He was barely in the lectures last year," Padma answered, "But the Wizengamot probably just wants to put him to work."

"Why is he working on the paintings, though?"

"I bet they didn't trust him to do any of the important stuff," Ron said.

"The paintings _are_ important, Ron, they're a part of the history of this school," Hermione admonished. "Didn't you read the chapter on them in _Hogwarts, A History_?"

"You know I haven't read that since first year."

Hermione shook her head, her annoyance mildly affectionate as she noticed his lopsided smile.

"It's typical pureblood nonsense, isn't it, learning to 'paint like the masters' and all," Ron continued. "Might as well stick a harpsichord in front of him while we're at it."

Despite her friends' snickering, Hermione examined the silent boy, puzzling through her thoughts.

She couldn't help but remember the sight of Malfoy's back earlier that day as he hunched over his supplies, his light hair reflecting the falling sun streaming over the crumbled wall. Later, she'd caught him cleaning a painting, rolling a small wad of cloth against the filthy surface while the painting's occupant watched. And when she was leaving for dinner, he had just finished repainting a section of another painting, having replaced the hole blown through the center with a fresh spot of canvas.

He was a pureblood aristocrat forced to learn specific leisure skills, there was no doubt of it, but she also knew when Malfoy thought something was stupid or not worth his time. She knew because he made it known by moaning about it. He was always complaining about homework, or tests, or needing to put on gloves in Herbology, or pretty much anything that required some level of effort. On top of that, though he'd still managed to get decent marks, he was always skiving off in class, twirling a quill or doodling. He rarely concentrated when he didn't see the need to. And he would certainly never concentrate so hard on something he thought was silly.

It was possible that he actually _enjoyed_ painting.

Unless he was afraid of what would happen if he complained...

Hermione finished her dinner and stood, and a few of her classmates did as well, chatting about the progress they'd made or how they should start a game of Exploding Snap in the corridor. Hermione was intent to keep working, put the library back in order as soon as possible, so she could start studying for her N.E.W.T.s.

As she pushed through the doors to the corridor, Ron halted her with a hand on her arm.

"Hey," he said.

She stopped, turning to face him.

His eyes met hers, sporting that wide-eyed, uncertain look he'd given her on so many occasions since he'd kissed her the first time.

She smiled, and he smiled back tentatively; they were still trying to navigate new territory, and it was difficult to determine where their friendship ended and their romantic relationship began.

He took a step forward and gently pulled her into a hug; Hermione sighed, letting her thoughts settle and just enjoying the feeling of being encased in a protective shell. They had been doing this more and more, finding time to be together away from the prying eyes of their friends, of his family; trying to sort out what was happening between them, what they wanted.

"I was going down to Hufflepuff to relax for a bit," he said. "Want to join?"

Nervousness tingled in Hermione's hands, and she quickly said, "Actually, I didn't get as much done in the library today as I wanted, and I was going to try to get rid of the broken glass before tomorrow."

She tried not to cringe at the disappointed shadow passing over his features, and quickly wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I'll be there to sleep in a bit," she qualified quickly, her voice dropping. "See you later?"

He nodded, turning and planting a kiss on her cheek. Her skin tingled when he pulled away.

She said goodbye, trying not to feel like she was putting off spending time with him alone, but after seeing the library today... she had to do something to clear her mind, something productive.

The library was dark when she entered, only lit by the dusk visible through the large corner taken out of the wall. Hermione shivered in the high night breeze, pulling her cardigan tighter around her shoulders.

She loved this place, she loved every stick of furniture, every book, every run in the carpet, everything, and it was heartbreaking to see it violated so. She had so many memories here: climbing the stairs to reach the heavy books on the second level when she was eleven; pouring over research, trying to find any account of a secret chamber when she was twelve; studying for O.W.L.s, her books piled so high that Madame Pince had accidentally snuffed the lights out for the night while Hermione was still there.

As she wiped her eyes, she realized that there was a candle lit somewhere behind where the tallest stacks shielded the paintings leaning against the wall; had someone come in without her knowing?

Hermione muttered a quick _lumos_ and went to investigate.

As she rounded the corner, she sighed heavily.

Of course he just had to be here.

Draco Malfoy was a few paces away, crossed-legged on the floor as he sealed a torn canvas carefully with his wand. Now clad in a T-shirt and dark trousers, his arms were bare, his Dark Mark twisting freely on his wrist.

Hermione averted her gaze from it, swallowing the strange taste in her mouth.

"What are you doing?" she asked, crossing her arms.

The only indication that Malfoy heard her was the annoyed huff escaping his mouth; he continued sealing the tear in the canvas gingerly, staring at the torn and scorched painting in front of him determinedly as the candlelight danced.

"I asked you a question," Hermione tried again.

"And I'm ignoring you," Draco rasped, his voice uneven from disuse; he cleared his throat angrily and continued, "Go away."

Hermione shook her head, turning back to the darkness of the library. She had known better than to engage with him, but couldn't help but feel something wriggling in her stomach, something like disappointment. With everything that had happened over the past year—not even, the past few months, the past _week_ —surely he had more to say than "go away?"

She stopped by the shattered windows, watching the shards refract the moon. It was a strange, new time for all of them, and she was willing to try to be decent—but if he wasn't willing to give an inch, then fine. She would leave him alone.

Hermione sighed, knelt, and began vanishing the glittering glass away.

* * *

The next morning was oddly surreal, as all her mornings had been over the past week.

For a moment when she awoke she was untroubled; the bed was unfamiliar, but her covers were soft, her limbs were heavy with sleep, and her mind was still clouded with a dream that was slowly fading.

But then she remembered why she was here. How much her home had been destroyed. Who she would never see again.

How she barely had a life to go back to outside of these walls.

And they were the walls of the Hufflepuff dormitories, the only rooms that were completely untouched by the effects of the battle as they were too far within the depths of the castle to have sustained damage. Unfortunately, Gryffindor Tower had partially fallen during the final fight, and Ravenclaw tower was still a mess, though intact. The Slytherin dungeon was mostly fine, but cracking in the school's plumbing had flooded the rooms, making Slytherin as delightful a sleeping place as a swamp.

Hermione squinted against the dark gold upholstery of the armchair near her bed, her eyes tracing the quirky cabriole legs down to the stone, rug-covered floor.

Another day was upon her, and she best get up and get to work on the library.

Once she dressed and made her way there, Malfoy was already in his corner, shuffling the wood and ripped canvasses around, apparently trying to organize the mess; Hermione ignored him pointedly and went back to the towering pile of rubble she had worked on the previous day.

By lunchtime she had sorted through that mountain as well, adding the mismatched books to their respective stacks. Her stack of ripped and sodden books was growing at alarming rate, and she paled to think of how long it was going to take to repair them, find the missing pages, clean the spines... if she could at all.

She resolved to stop tinkering around with the rubble and start trying to make a dent in that pile, as soon as she cleared away the last few books.

As she spoke the levitation charm, Neville was suddenly by her side, his hands on his hips.

"How's it going?" Hermione asked, her eyes narrowed as she concentrated.

He sighed, swishing his wand. "Sorry to bug you again. Need another book." He paused, then raised his arm. " _Accio A Herbologist's Guide to Carnivorous Aquatic Plants_."

"That's not going to work," Hermione reminded, shuffling books into the precarious towers carefully, her concentration unbroken.

"Shoot," Neville sighed, "I thought I'd try anyway."

"You need to have an idea of _where_ the thing you're summoning—"

"I know," he muttered. "I was hoping to not have to dig around."

"I'm working on at least getting the sections back in the same vicinity," Hermione put forth, opening her eyes fully and letting the last stream of books fall into place on top of her stack. "Once that is done, it should be easier to search."

"For potions, at least some of the books are in the dungeon, but all the materials in the greenhouses are a mess... we're still trying to salvage the plants..."

"I've got to at least get the textbooks sorted, then I can get to the Herbology section."

He nodded, looking around; Hermione had gotten rid of most of the glass the previous night, and had already resolved to talk to McGonagall about hiring an artisan to replace the stained glass windows, perhaps with scenes of great historians and authors instead of the oddly gruesome classical tales that were illustrated on the previous windows.

"I see you have company," Neville commented, his gaze shifting ever so slightly to the right.

Hermione looked over his shoulder at Malfoy across the library, sitting in front of a wide dark canvas, painting in broad strokes.

She nodded mutely, letting her gaze fall away and back to her neat piles. "Yeah."

Neville looked down as well, his shoulders square. "Well, let me know if you find any plant guides."

"I will," she murmured.

* * *

Draco exhaled slowly as he finished the dark underpainting, setting the flat, dripping brush aside. While that part dried, he could perhaps look at the painting of the young sir with the hole taken out of the bottom. For the sake of his sanity he'd decided to start this endeavor with the art he recognized first, the paintings that were both easily identifiable and had minimal damage. The other paintings, the ones that were little more than singed, crumped piles of refuse... well, he would have a much harder time repairing those, if he could at all.

Draco stood, stretched until the satisfying pops of released tension sounded from his back, and pushed the freshly cloaked canvas aside to address the damaged painting.

It was actually somewhat of a relief to be doing something he actually enjoyed while he fulfilled the terms of his sentence; there had been no hour limit, but instead an ominous deadline of "whenever he was finished."

The real punishment wasn't the work in that sense, but being back here, feeling people's eyes on him as he made his way around, hearing conversations stop whenever he entered a room, dark mutterings whenever he walked past. After the first day he made it a point to avoid everyone as much as possible, and just try to stick to his paintings; whenever he opened his mouth there was always the chance that he would lash out without meaning to, surely earning him a hex or more dirty looks. So for now his goal was to keep his head down and finish out his sentence before the people he'd spent the last seven years tormenting caught him in a dark corridor and finished the Dark Lord's work.

It wasn't like he could retaliate... whatever the Wizengamot had done to his wand made certain spells not work, so he couldn't even enjoy having that piece of himself back. Wielding his old wand was like trying to ride a carriage with square wheels: he experimentally blundered around, waving the thing about, trying to learn what spells he could and couldn't perform, only to be rewarded half the time.

Cleaning spells seemed to be working, but he knew better than to use them on something like an oil painting. Merlin knows he would strip some of the paint away if he attempted to magic away the soot. On the other hand, spells that should have been perfectly innocent— _alohamora_ , for instance—were blocked. He'd scoffed at that—what secret room did they think he was going to sneak into?

The actual act of painting was an easy silver lining in all of this. Draco was by no means a master, but painting wasn't a pastime employed by a lot of people in his community, especially not the style of painting he did. Most people enjoyed more modern forms such as printmaking, or using watercolors or ink, but Draco wasn't interested in that. He was fascinated by the high fidelity, grand paintings of old, the withering shadows and muddied tones of works dating back even to the 12th century. His favorite tended to be the renaissance works of the 1600s however; when artists learned more about proportion and composition, and could replicate scenes with more integrity, more detail. And Hogwarts had a load of those: classical scenes depicting pagan goddesses and stories of the ancient world; scholars in wooden rooms, pouring over shining instruments and magical objects of great power as they conversed; old kings and queens, knights, sires, dukes and duchesses, and famed inventors from all over Europe; even some previous Hogwarts teachers, forever celebrated in the halls they once walked.

There were other works as well: depictions from every goblin war, detailing great battles and treaties, assassinations and the reclaiming of rights; beautiful rare creatures, majestic in their natural habitats; and odd characters of old stories, immortalized in scenes of risk and reward.

His training had started on his own actually; the paintings in Malfoy Manor had always appalled him, except one: a shining, flowery painting of a girl in a garden not unlike the one outside his chamber window. She had apparently been his great great great aunt on his father's side, the one to initially inhabit the Manor when the land was first seized hundreds of years before his birth. The Manor's details had apparently been painted white back then, the stone clean and unmarked from the weather.

Draco shook his head; he didn't want to think about his home right now, knowing that it was being torn apart by Aurors as they investigated the Death Eater's hideout.

He looked back at the painting he was about to work on; it was one he knew, as it had been right next to the fourth-floor corridor staircase, the first painting around the corner. It was of a man by the name of Sir Coleville Green, who could not resist saying hello when someone passed in front of him. Draco had never responded to the man, and he felt a twinge of something uncomfortable in his gut at the thought now, for the young sir was slumped over in his chair, apparently not breathing.

This was such new territory for him, repairing paintings that had already been enchanted to move, paintings that hadn't been touched for hundreds of years. Even the paint that had been available at the time this work was painted was vastly different than the pre-mixed oils Draco had at his disposal; a lot of artists had still mixed their paints by hand back then, and didn't have the same cataloging system for color that wizards had today. Besides, there was no guide for which colors the artist had used, which underpainting technique they had employed... and when it came to the scenes themselves, each artist had their own way of painting certain objects, which would be impossible to replicate without extensive research... there was a lot to think about, essentially.

Draco tapped lightly at the canvas, hoping that the man inside awoke, but nothing happened; the painting still appeared to be enchanted, as the clouds were moving outside the man's window, so the spell didn't seem to be malfunctioning.

Giving up, Draco returned to the tear at the bottom and resealed it quickly so he could paint in the missing chair leg.

* * *

Hermione had yet to see Malfoy in the Hufflepuff common room, and for the first few days she wondered if he was sleeping at all; whenever she appeared in the library in the morning he was already there, cross-legged and dabbing away at a beaten canvas; he was usually at dinner, numbly picking away at his food, but afterward if she went to the library he was there again, silently working.

She had barely spoken more than a dozen words to him, and they were usually something like, "excuse me," or "found a piece of frame."

By the next week she had cleared away much of the debris and sorted out most of the books; unfortunately the ones that remained were on Malfoy's side of the library, where the tall canvases leaned against the wall. He had begun leaning the finished and undamaged paintings against the backside of the broken shelves of the Arithmancy section, exactly the place she needed to tackle next; the devastation there was particularly nasty, splintered wood, singed paper, and jutting nails everywhere.

As she stopped near that section, she observed Draco work, as she sometimes did, for a few seconds. This particular painting was one she had seen him work on pretty frequently, and she'd watched it go from a dark wash of blue, to strips of red and purple, to what appeared to be a beach scene bathed by a sunset, rolling mountains just discernible.

She looked on curiously; she'd never seen this painting in the castle before. It wasn't very classical... in fact, the style was all wrong, nothing like the austerely academic works that adorned the corridors, or the warm, playful scenes that lined the tower of the open network of stairs. It was a landscape, and there definitely weren't many landscapes at Hogwarts. It seemed... almost modern, and with a wildly vivid palette compared to the browns and muted blues and yellows of the rest of the paintings. It didn't seem like he was repainting something that had already been in the castle... so what was this?

Hermione grounded her nerves and asked, "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" Draco muttered, not looking up.

"I've never seen this painting around the castle. Which room is it in?"

"This isn't a Hogwarts painting."

"Then what- "

"This is _my_ painting, okay?" he sputtered, throwing the brush. The brush clattered against the only intact bookshelf, leaving a spattering of red paint across the wood.

"Oh, for the love of—can you _try_ not to destroy the library while you work?!" Hermione scathed, brushing past him and kneeling next to the splatter.

"Can _you_ leave me alone?" he retorted, fetching a new brush and dabbing it on his palette.

Hermione rolled the brush aside and took out her wand, and with a quick _scourgify_ the paint was gone; in fact, that part of the shelf looked much cleaner than the surrounding area, which was blackened with soot and dirt. Hermione sighed heavily, rubbing a thumb over the worn oak.

She knelt and continued cleaning the bookcase; this wasn't the best way to clean, but she needed a clear shelf to start putting books, and she might as well start somewhere.

Once the bookcase was clean, she began sorting through the debris near the paintings, lifting the large pieces away and vanishing them if they were beyond repair.

This would have been a simple task, but unfortunately every few seconds she could hear Malfoy sigh in annoyance as he hovered over his beach scene, occasionally placing delicate strokes. He seemed frustrated, with her yes, but also with whatever he was doing. He wasn't painting in broad strokes anymore, but was making singular marks on the canvas, then leaning back to survey the change.

More than an hour later—Hermione had already unloaded enough books on the shelf to start on the next one—Draco sighed audibly, his arm dropping to sign the bottom. Now that the creative part of the painting was done, he needed to charm it to move, then cover it in a layer of varnish once it was dry. The movement charm tended to work the best when the paint was still tacky, or so he'd read, so it was best to charm it immediately. After the paint dried and the movement charm stabilized, he could seal it and be done.

Draco set down the brush, picked up his handicapped wand, and closed his eyes, concentrating on the painting charm; he'd only performed it a few times before, so while it wasn't entirely new to him, it was still a complicated charm that he wasn't a master at.

Unfortunately, Granger was saying " _Wingardium leviosa_ " several times a minute, and the sound of the splintered wood and heavy books falling and scraping as she cleaned was irking him.

"Can you be quiet? I'm trying to charm this thing," he muttered.

She didn't respond, but her next _wingardium leviosa_ , spoken in that nasally voice he remembered from first year, was clipped and edged in annoyance.

Draco sighed again, squeezing his eyes shut as he focused his thoughts, trying to block out the noise. He held the vision of the painting in his mind's eye: white beach, waves. Mountains, stretching sky, vivid in the fading light of the sun. _His_ sanctuary, _his_ beach, the only light in his darkness, the thing he wanted...

Unfortunately he could vaguely see Granger's silhouette as well, threatening to break his concentration as another _wingardium leviosa_ rang in the air, but he firmly suppressed annoyance as he took a deep breath.

The words came out clearly: " _Aperiam en porta. Vitae modica vitam. Resurgemus... leviosa._ "

As the incantation left his lips, he suddenly noticed the silence, and his eyes opened automatically; Granger was watching him, her wand still raised, a soiled book still hovering in the air next to her.

He met Granger's gaze; that expression he knew all too well, the haughty and insecure arrogance she always exuded was there, but there was something else there as well. His attention was captured for no more than a moment, but it seemed to stretch on as he processed many things at once—the well-polished wand in her hand, her fingers gripping it; her disheveled muggle clothing that in his opinion too closely resembled a Hogwarts uniform; her aged eyes, framed in pink as though she had been crying earlier that morning.

Her eyes were a color he should have recognized, and as he did with works of art he automatically mixed the color in his head... but the refractions were so complex that it seemed impossible to recreate through pigment. Except... what?

As the moment passed, he knew instantly that something was wrong; the light that usually engulfed a freshly enchanted painting was supposed to be soft, not wild like this, crackling with lightning. And the light wasn't just around the painting, but the rug and the books propping it up as well, around the plant next to the shelf... and around Granger herself.

"What—"

Hermione looked around in alarm as the light engulfed her, and an unfathomable pain seared her skin; her flesh began to harden and crackle, like rubber going brittle with age, sizzling as the lightning scorched her skin.

She opened her mouth to scream but her throat was paper thin, crackling and tightening, fusing together; a crushing weight like a compactor was compressing her body, flattening her limbs.

And then the pain was gone, leaving nothing more than a series of trembles, and she became aware of the floor beneath her feet again... looser, but it was there.

She shook, falling to the ground, her hands splayed over... sand?

And it was... warm?

As her eyes refocused, she looked down at her arms, shaking from the trauma. Her skin looked normal—it wasn't flattening and cracking—but it felt... different. It was smoother, silkier, not like skin at all, but like something fake. Where those tiny hairs on her arm, or were they... brush strokes?

Hermione looked behind her, her eyes wide.

She was on a beach, similar to what Malfoy had painted, but she could actually hear the waves crash, see the details of the sky and clouds as they moved overhead. The color of the sky was the same frightening purple and red, the sand ivory under her fingers.

A potent sense of dread filled her body; her brain was starting to piece it together and it was terrifying, unthinkable.

She turned back; a gilded frame was suspended in the air in front of her, with the sunlit library beyond... and Draco's horrified face filling the center.

"Oh my god," she whispered.

* * *

 _Author's note (11/25/18)_ : Hey everyone, new story here. I'm super excited about this one, I've been concepting it for a while. Feel free to drop a review and let me know what you think! Chapter two coming next week!


	2. Sienna

" _Everything you can imagine is real."—Pablo Picasso_

 **Chapter Two: Sienna**

In an imaginary place in the deep corners of Hermione's mind, there was no gravity. Up was down and down was up, and neither was distinguishable as a surface to place her feet. Nothing made sense, nothing stood by the laws of logic. She could swim in any direction, only to find her knees grazing the clouds and her mouth in the sand.

That nightmare was real, tangible, in a way she couldn't have known before now. At that moment Hell had a taste: it was salty like the underside of a skipping stone, speckled and fishy like the foam of Venus. It was smooth, fluid in the beach air, and that weightlessness permeated the breeze, sickeningly warm like a blanket on a humid day.

The beach was beautiful; at least it should have been. It should have been something anyone would desire. It was the backdrop to polished models on holiday, carefree children unburdened by the woes of how they got there and where they would go next. The sea held endless promise of dreamy solitude with a wisp of curiosity, as though the waking world was there beyond to discover.

Hermione's hands shook as she grasped the sand beneath her; it should have been darker, much darker, but it was a blinding shade of white despite the growing darkness, despite the looming intensity of the sky overhead. She stood slowly, forcing her gaze up to the suspended frame, hovering unmoving just beyond the licks of the shore.

She had been doing something, not thirty seconds ago. Time had seemed to stop but how could it? She could see the remains of the library she had toiled in all morning through the frame, around Malfoy's dumbfounded face.

All at once, her helplessness took shape, filling the cavities of her body, swirling behind her irises, until finally -

" _What the hell did you do to me?!_ " she screeched, grabbing either side of the frame and pushing; it didn't budge from its fixed position in the air.

Draco shook his head, eyes wide, sputtering uselessly.

"Malfoy, what the heck did you do?!"

"I—I don't know!"

"Well, figure it out and _fix it!_ Or I'm gonna fix you!"

"I'm trying—give me a second!" he yelled back, feeling the edges of the frame like there was some sort of hidden toggle there that would reverse whatever this was, transport them back in time to a place where she was annoying and he was painting and they were stuck together, yes, but not _stuck_.

"Malfoy, you complete—I'm _in_ your bloody painting! Where—where _is_ this?"

"Alright, alright, shut it! Just let me—" and he jabbed his fingers into the canvas desperately, then pulled his hand away, cursing. "Ugh, damn paint is still tacky—"

The air next to Hermione warped with color and texture, like the very fabric of reality was twisting, and Hermione scrambled away from it, falling to the sand.

"AH!" she screamed as the sand beside her flew into the air as though kicked; she fell back, just in time for a rush of seawater to crest on top of her.

Draco watched in horror as she resurfaced, her hair plastered to her head and slick with water, eyelashes glued together with drops as she coughed.

"Shit, I—"

" _Malfoy!_ " she scathed, spitting salt water out of her mouth like she was cursing at the devil, " _don't do that again!_ "

"Well, I didn't know that—"

"You can't just stick your fingers in—"

"I'm trying to—"

"—you're such an imbecile, I can't believe you've—"

"Give me a bloody minute, I'll figure it out!" he shot back, wiping his paint-smeared hand unceremoniously on the carpet next to them as he inspected the frame. Breath shallow, he searched for any clue to what was happening, any possible loophole that gave a clear explanation.

But there _wasn't_ any; he had no idea how she'd ended up in the painting and no idea how to get her out. With the disbelief came an amnesia—what _had_ he done? He'd casted the charm, but what had been different beyond the frizzy Gryffindor standing there? It wasn't possible, it _couldn't_ be possible that he'd messed this up.

"There's... I mean, there's no portkey, no hole, nothing..." Draco muttered, his hands shaking as he skimmed the edges.

The painted figures behind Draco murmured in their respective scenes, craning to look at Hermione. Their chatter wafted over Draco, and he could feel their curiosity and scandalized disapproval. He glanced behind him; he would have typically liked to tell them off, tear into them to claw his way out of inferiority, but nothing was connecting for him. Nothing made sense, not his position on the floor or the paint smearing his hands, not the beatific seaside scene he poured so much soul into. And certainly not the patch of sienna in the center of that pristine beach, huffing and coughing as she dragged herself to her knees.

Hermione got to her feet clumsily, sliding in the wet sand as her soaked clothing dripped, heavy drops plopping and denting the beach. The water was lukewarm, and in that sense it was unlike any seawater she'd ever touched; she felt as though someone had just dunked her in old bathwater. Was the water supposed to be that warm?

"Wait, wait, okay. Step away for a second," Hermione said quickly, smoothing her wet hair back.

As Draco hastily moved aside, she pressed a dripping palm on the painting of the destroyed Hogwarts library; it felt like the underside of a canvas, rough and tight.

"Okay," she murmured, "so I can't just push through..."

"Try your wand," Draco commanded.

Hermione looked around the wet sand; her wand was sticking out of the ground next to her, and she snatched it up and wiped it on her shirt.

"Okay... uh, _aguamenti_."

"Wha—the water spell? Try something more useful!"

"I will, just... _aguamenti!_ "

She fell silent as she looked at her wand; there should have been a steady stream of water jetting from the end, but nothing was happening. In fact, she should have been able to feel the magic activate like she did anytime she casted a spell; usually, it felt like her body was releasing a burst of energy, almost like a sneeze, and she could feel the magic working, the specific shape and texture of that spell. Her wand should have been an extension of her arm. But now, her body felt nothing beyond the breeze as it cooled her water-speckled skin.

"Magic... doesn't seem to be working in here," she said in wonder; it was a ludicrous thought, as magic shouldn't have anything to do with a location, it was the individual who _channeled_ the magic...

"Magic isn't working? But how is that—"

She shook her head. "I don't know, it's— _periculum!_ Ah... _rictasempra!_ " Nothing happened—no sparks, no light, no indication that anything changed. She might as well have been brandishing a stick.

"Can you apparate? Charm anything?"

She shook her head, staring down at her wand. The fear she'd felt initially seized her heart again, that feeling of utter weightlessness and frightful confusion; if she couldn't use her wand, couldn't apparate, and couldn't move the painting from its fixed point...

"I... I really am inside the painting," she murmured. "I didn't portkey here... this place isn't in our known world..."

Draco pointed his wand at the painting and said, " _Finite incantatem_."

The painting shimmered briefly, but then was still.

"Did you seriously think that would work?" Hermione admonished, crossing her arms.

"Well, it was worth a try. Always do the simplest thing first," he defended.

That was a fair perspective; despite the result of her earlier attempt Hermione raised her wand and said, " _Finite incantatem_." As expected, she felt nothing, no spark of impending change, no indication that anything had happened.

Malfoy scratched his temple. "I don't understand, I've seen wizards casting spells in other paintings, all the time—"

"Yes, but they were all paintings _of_ wizards, in the wizarding world..." She looked desperately around the beach; to her right was a pile of ashy dirt partially encompassed by jagged terra-cotta... a dead potted plant, likely the singed ficus tree she had been standing next to not a few minutes before. Nestled in the dirt was a book, and judging by the deep burgundy cover it was that old copy of _A History of Magic_ by Bathilda Bagshot. This one was outdated and soiled, though repairable.

As she raised her gaze up, she jumped back at the sight before her.

A few paces away, the beach was shrouded in darkness, like a dark fog closing in.

She stared, her body shaking as she waited one breathless moment to be consumed by the darkness, whatever it was... but the dark expanse didn't appear to be moving; it stayed there, ominous in its silent, consuming depth.

One glance to the right told her that the void was on both sides, framing the scene around her in hellish darkness. She shrank down unconsciously, looking up at the sky; this place felt less like the natural world and more like the inside of a snow-globe, like the edges of reality were just a few steps away.

Hermione's hands tingled; what would happen if she touched the black? Would she disappear, just like the edge of the beach? What was waiting there in that void?

And where in the world did something like the black fog _exist?_

Hermione cleared her throat pointedly, her heart slowing its furious beating. "Oh god... w-where is this place?"

When she received no answer, she looked back through the frame to discover Malfoy staring blankly, his eyebrows knotted together.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Malfoy, what's that look?"

"I..." he shook his head, trailing off.

Hermione straightened up, stepping into the wet sand; Malfoy was unmoving in the center of the suspended canvas.

She stepped closer, knowing that the lukewarm water was going to lap at her feet and not caring; something in Malfoy's expression was strangely dead, as if he'd found something.

"Malfoy... what is it?" she repeated.

"They're gonna snap my wand," he said finally, his eyes widening, his voice hollow. "They're gonna send me to Azkaban. I've... I've killed Goody Granger."

"Don't call me that," Hermione sputtered, "and no one is going to snap your bloody wand! How can you be so selfish right now?!"

"They're gonna—"

"I'm not dead, Malfoy, we can fix this—"

"I don't—what am I supposed to do?!" he raged, gesturing at her. "This is not normal!"

"I know, but just—"

"You're going to be like that forever," he said in the same hollow tone, his eyes far away.

"Whoa, whoa!" Hermione exclaimed, "You can't just keep me prisoner in here!"

A cold feeling flooded Draco's chest as he was involuntarily thrust back into his memories, memories of a particularly awful day a few months back, when he watched his former classmates tortured and battered in his drawing room, watched the girl in front of him writhing in pain on the marble floor he used to play on as a child.

"I'm not going to keep you prisoner," he said quietly.

Hermione sputtered, gesturing wildly. "Well—then figure out what you did and undo it!"

"I... I don't know what I did..."

Hermione leaned on the frame heavily, cradling her sodden head; Draco looked on in morbid fascination as the brush strokes changed directions as she moved, morphing and blending as she ran shaking fingers through her sopping hair.

"If you don't know what you did..." Hermione mused, her voice tight, "then we need to ask someone who will know."

"No one knows how to charm the paintings, Granger," Draco exasperated. "Why do you think they had me doing this in the first place? The only one who even knows the _history_ of the paintings is... Binns, maybe. Or McGonagall."

At Granger's silence, Draco eyed her suspiciously. She was wringing out her hair thoughtfully, her eyebrows furrowed in an expression Draco had grown to recognize over the years. She always had that look on her face whenever she was puzzling through something, coming up with a reason to question her teachers or classmates. If Draco could paint her, he would undoubtedly concoct a pose with that expression firmly in place.

Whatever she was about to say, he wasn't going to like it. In fact, if the only two people that could help them were Binns and McGonagall, then she...

Oh hell.

"Don't even think about it," he said lowly.

"Why not?" Hermione asked.

"Because—she'll kill me!"

"You _have_ to take this to McGonagall, Malfoy, don't be daft!"

"She's going to turn me in!"

Hermione sighed, rubbing her temple. "Look, I get that it was a mistake, I can explain that to her—but you have to fix this. _We_ have to fix this."

Draco shook his head, running a hand through his hair.

"Come _on_ , Malfoy, it's the only way!"

"Maybe if I just—"

" _Go to her office!_ " Hermione stormed, and Draco stepped back in alarm.

Despite her anger, Hermione couldn't help but notice the flicker of fear in Malfoy's usually impassive expression, before it disappeared behind a scowl.

"Why—what's wrong with the headmistress's office?" she asked evenly.

Malfoy didn't reply, just stood, his expression carefully guarded. For one breathless moment, Hermione studied him, trying to determine what he was thinking... she'd barely wasted a thought on what might be tumbling around in his brain before, but with such an overt show of fear, she couldn't help but narrow her eyes at him.

But then he turned, as if to walk away. The moment passed, and Hermione grabbed either side of the gilded frame once more, pressing her nose to the canvas as he retreated. Before he completely vanished from sight she cried out desperately, "Malfoy, please! Go find McGonagall!... _Malfoy!_ "

He didn't turn back. Hermione watched as her only hope, her only chance at getting out of this mess, the only one who could help her, grew smaller and smaller until his form disappeared off the edge of the frame.

* * *

He could be walking faster, he knew. He could also have remembered to bring his useless wand with him, or recognized that despite being the only one within reach of the school who could restore the art collection, he wasn't anywhere near qualified to do so.

He could also try to remember what he'd done wrong to end up in this mess, but it was oddly foggy, existing somewhere between confusion and certainty.

There was a lot of things he could be doing differently, in fact.

This was it, though. This was infinitely worse than throwing a half-hearted Cruciatus curse at Potter, or cursing Katie Bell with a necklace, or poisoning some mead. If they didn't figure out how to fix her... Granger was stuck like that for _life_.

And while he didn't care for Granger specifically, he did care about himself... and he knew that McGonagall, and the inevitably the Wizengamot, were going to crucify him for this.

He couldn't help the squirmy eel of annoyance in his gut at the thought of Granger, bringing a hurricane of trouble with her wherever she went. She couldn't just keep her bushy head down, could she, she always had to bring dysfunction and destruction upon everything she touched. While it had been clear before that Potter was usually the cause of all the mad nonsense constantly harassing this school, Granger was always one step behind him, invariably ruffling the curtains, blowing smoke into the hollows and making it impossible for anyone to go about their business.

Urgh, Granger had looked positively absurd in the middle of his painting. With that cosmic crimson and lilac sunset, glowing white beach, she'd stuck out like a smear of mud in the center. She always found a way to ruin everything…

Draco tried to ignore the uncomfortable air looming over him at that thought—whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not, she'd done nothing to provoke this. But the idea of her mucking around in his landscape irked him, and despite his guilt a dark part of his mind thrashed. Draco wanted to snarl at her like the monster he was.

All of this directional anger was doing a decent job of distracting him from the real issue, however, and like a dragon's eye in a cauldron it resurfaced, slipping back into his consciousness to ruin his self-indulgent tirade: once again he'd made a bloody mess. And he was going to pay for it.

He stopped in the dusty hallway, his oxfords sliding on the stone, the sound reverberating down the corridor.

Did he... did he _have_ to tell McGonagall? Tell _anyone_? He could lean his painting towards the back of the pile, tell people Granger had gone home if they asked, and then figure out the spell on his own... he didn't want other people's help, he didn't _need_ it.

He could figure it out himself, in secret... or better yet, just leave her there...

No, no, no! This was _exactly_ why he was in this situation to begin with. It had been hammered into him during his trial; over and over they'd asked, 'why didn't you seek the help of your teachers?' The answer at the time was clear: because they would have locked him up, obviously! Was he supposed to believe that the Hogwarts shepherds would've just rapped him on the knuckles, begrudgingly admitted that they were glad he said something, then sent him on his way? No. But despite this Draco knew that these Gryffindor-blooded aurors and lawkeepers cared about things like forthright honesty. And in his current position, shackled to his penance and unable to escape it without retribution, he could hardly do otherwise.

What he had to do now was get up, brush the dust off of his sense of right and wrong, and fix this. At the very least, so he didn't go to prison for the foreseeable future.

Draco started down the corridor again, his steps quickening as he marinated with his decision, knowing that it was a mistake, but not one he might regret for the rest of his life.

He made his way into the main wing of the castle and out the unhinged double doors to the courtyard. A row of wizards were raising stones and rubble in a line, trailing up one hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet in the air, disappearing as the stones filled in the gaping hole in the side of the Astronomy Tower.

Draco stopped, suddenly at a loss for words as he watched Professor Flitwick, Terry Boot, and Professor McGonagall lead the string of stone blocks into the air.

"Did you need something, Mr. Malfoy?" McGonagall asked, still concentrating on her wandwork.

Draco nodded, finding his throat to be oh-so-conveniently dry at this crucial moment of delivery. "Ah... there has been an accident in the library," he said vaguely.

"Then take care of it," she replied.

"I... I'm not certain—"

"Then _look it up_. Use your brain, Malfoy, that's what it's there for."

"I... Professor..."

McGonagall finally looked over at him, wand still raised, and a flicker of concern passed over her features as she took in his expression.

Draco ran a paint-smeared hand through his hair, feigning nonchalance, but it was too late; McGonagall fixed him with her steeliest glare and said, "What kind of accident?"

Oh Merlin, this was it. Draco swallowed to wet his dry throat, and managed to croak out, "Granger... is trapped in a painting."

"Trapped? Trapped, how?"

He was quickly losing resolve as he watched his professor's face twist from mild annoyance to contempt, her lips pursed.

"She's... uh... she's _in_ a painting."

"And how did that happen?"

"Ah... well, I'm not—"

She held up a hand. "That's enough. Take me there, please."

Draco turned on his heel, knowing that his ears were red; he _hated_ looking incompetent in front of his teachers, it didn't matter that her opinion would mean very little in a few months, or that she wasn't technically his teacher anymore... Draco burned with embarrassment as he led McGonagall through the courtyard and into the castle. As he walked, barely keeping pace ahead of the professor's sharp steps, he tried not to feel like he was walking to his own grave, but he was certain that the ruins of the castle were going to swallow him whole as soon as the professor saw what he had done.

He slowed down as they passed through the broken archway of the library, the light horrendously bright through the hole in the wall. Draco squinted, his gaze downcast as he trudged to the painting.

Once they stopped, McGonagall crossed her arms as she stared at the red and purple landscape. Hermione tucked a curl behind her ear, looking between McGonagall and Malfoy.

"Well, you've been busy, haven't you?" McGonagall said through her teeth. Draco shrank back unconsciously.

"I... it was an accident," he muttered, avoiding Granger's eyes.

"I'm okay, Professor, I just want to get out," Hermione reasoned, wiping her face with the back of her wrist.

McGonagall took in Hermione's saturated clothing, sandy arms and damp curls, the fuzz just starting to return as her previously soaked hair cooked in the heat.

"You don't look anything close to 'okay,' Miss Granger!" she snapped. "And _you,_ " she said, rounding on Draco, "I leave you alone for one week and already you're making a mess of things!"

"I was minding my own business when—"

"I don't want to hear your excuses, Mr. Malfoy. You did this—own up to it!"

Sweat broke under Draco's collar; if his ears weren't red before they certainly were now. He bowed his head, confused and hurt, at the mercy of the discomfort of being wrong.

"It didn't seem like it was on purpose," a voice said; it was the painting directly behind Draco, of a young knight in armor, perched astride a bridled chimera. His front-row, first-class-with-extra-legroom seat to the mess instantly made his contribution worth teasing out, and the rest of the painting-bound spectators joined the professor in eyeing him.

"I saw the whole thing. Miss Granger was there—" the knight pointed to the half-full bookcase next to the landscape—"and Mr. Malfoy was casting the charm, and when he was finished, she was in the painting."

McGonagall took a deep breath and exhaled. "Thank you, Sir Galahad. Now Draco, do you remember what happened when you charmed the canvas?"

Draco shook his head. "I said the incantation... Granger did something... and the light was odd..."

"And I felt like..." Hermione trailed off, her eyes unfocused as she visibly swallowed. "Like I was being crushed."

"And then you were inside."

Hermione nodded. "Yes."

"Do you remember the incantation you said?"

"I don't think it was that, I think it was because I was... distracted."

"And thus are mistakes made," McGonagall scathed, and Draco bowed his head even more. "Miss Granger, are you functioning, more or less?"

"Yes," she answered, "but this place is scary, Professor. I feel like something bad is coming."

"Something bad," she echoed. "I see. Are there any tools you can use to escape? What do you have there?"

Hermione looked down at her feet where the book lay. "I've got this, and my wand. And a dead plant, but the pot shattered."

"You're lucky _you_ weren't shattered," the professor said swiftly. "Is there anyone there with you?"

"No," Draco answered for her, "It's just a landscape. Sand and water and such."

"And you can't visit the other paintings in this room?"

"I..." Hermione looked to her left. No more than a few paces down the beach was that odd expanse of black, silent and foreboding. She peered behind the canvas, and was fearful to see the black consuming the sea beyond, the waves crashing into nothing.

"I can't, there's... there's nothing there," she whispered. "It's like a black hole."

"Nothing, how?"

"Well, I didn't paint the rest of the beach, did I? I only had so much canvas," Draco said.

A moment passed, and McGonagall slowly turned her gaze back to Draco, her features murderous. With each passing second, Draco's heart dropped even more, until he was sure it was going to fall right out of his body.

"Which brings me to my last question," McGonagall said quietly, in her dangerously low way, "what _is_ this painting?"

"It's... it's an original work," Draco managed, his voice small.

"And why are you using your punishment time to create an original?" she asked.

He felt ridiculous, like everything he'd ever done up to this point was wrong. Even as his brain formed excuses, they rang out hollowly to no applause. "I... it's part of the creative process," he tried, gesturing. "You can't work on the same thing all the time, you get creatively burnt out..."

"And you will get _physically_ burnt out if I catch you doing this again," she retorted. "You're here for a reason, Mr. Malfoy. Do not let the Minister's misplaced faith go to waste."

He shook his head quickly, eyes trained on his feet, his eyebrows knotted together.

"In the meantime, why don't we ask our paintings if there is some way they can help you, Miss Granger."

"But professor, the people in the paintings... they aren't like us, they're not real. And, what if... what if I lose my mind? My memory? Oh... my N.E.W.T.s -"

Draco threw up his hands. "Only you would be concerned about your coursework right now."

"Of course I am, that's the whole point—"

"Please," McGonagall sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Hermione's voice died, and the professor continued, "With the castle looking like this, I am _astounded_ that you two weren't more careful. We've already had enough accidents in the past week alone, and I can't have you help with the restoration if you aren't going to keep yourselves safe. No test is worth your health, your livelihood, your _life_. For Merlin's sake, the worst of this is supposed to be over!"

Hermione's eyes prickled, as they had done many times over the past week; as she was getting used to doing, the brunette witch took a deep breath, clawing her emotional state back from that hole of despair that always threatened to claim her. McGonagall was right: the worst should have been over. Voldemort was dead, the majority of the Death Eaters had been detained, and the school was being cleaned up. There was no sense in getting hurt now, after everything she'd been through, everything she'd done.

"I... I'm okay, Professor," Hermione stammered. "I don't like it, but I don't think this is permanent."

"It better not be," the professor replied, eyeing Draco. "This work isn't a Hogwarts painting, so I'm not sure if it will function the same way."

Hermione nodded. "And magic doesn't work in here, but it does in other paintings in the castle—like the one that was on the fifth floor; the Salem witches were all casting Patronus charms."

"Magic isn't working... I see. That is a serious handicap. In that case, the first thing we should do is allow you the freedom to go between paintings."

"But if the relationship between paintings has to do with intended space... or, subject matter... I've only ever seen people walk between paintings next to them, or if a person has more than one portrait."

"This is true, Miss," another voice said, high like a flute; behind the knight's painting was a larger, more playful scene. A chubby, one-eyed cherub was peeking over the knight's gilded frame, his little tuft of hair wispy, his wings fluttery. "I can visit the other paintings I was depicted in quite easily."

McGonagall nodded slowly, thinking. Draco and Hermione waited.

Finally, the professor said, "Mr. Malfoy... we're going to need you to paint her portrait at a smaller scale."

" _What?_ "

"She needs to be able to move around."

"But that—"

"Since your incompetence has put us in this predicament, I find it's only natural that through your effort we rectify this situation," she steamrolled over him. "As such, you _will_ paint her a more mobile, hopefully magic-enabled environment. And figure out how to bring Miss Granger back to us."

"But what if—"

"If it doesn't work, try something else! Come on now, is that just an empty shell between your ears?" she said, and Malfoy promptly closed his mouth. "I can't do everything for you, as you can see there still is quite a lot that needs to be done to get the castle back in prime condition. We're accepting one of our largest classes of first years this fall... and I don't want anything like this to happen to them when they arrive."

Hermione spoke up. "Professor—what do we tell everyone? The other volunteers?"

Minerva thought for a second, looking between the two former students. Hermione looked back uncertainly.

"This is quite a predicament," the teacher finally replied. "They will need to be told what happened. So that they aren't worried."

"On the contrary, I think it will make them _more_ worried," Hermione put forth.

"Yes, and I don't fancy getting hexed for this," Draco added.

"Oh yes, we wouldn't want _you_ to get _hexed,_ would we?" Hermione ground out, voice dripping in sarcasm.

The professor raised her hand, glaring at them. "That's enough, both of you," she said sternly. "I'll inform the volunteers of what has happened personally. Mr. Malfoy, you will accompany me."

Draco's jaw snapped shut, his face paling.

"Now get to it. I'll inform the volunteers at dinner if you don't clean this up by then."

The professor gave Draco one last glare, solidifying her request, and turned out of the library, leaving Draco with his head in his hands.

"Fucking hell, why me," he muttered, rubbing his temples.

"Don't be like that, you're the one who got us into this mess!"

"It was a bloody accident, you twit!" he scathed.

"Accident or not, I don't want to be in here anymore—so start painting!"

"That's not going to work, Granger, if anything I'll just create an imaginary version of you. A shade! How are you supposed to go into that painting if your fake version is already there?"

"I don't know, Malfoy, but we need to do something!"

"Alright, fine, fine," he sighed. "I'll do the dumb painting. It's not going to work, but... ugh."

Hermione nodded and leaned away from the suspended frame, stepping back up the beach. Her hair was finally starting to dry; she fluffed it, loosening the damp curls to speed up the process. What she wouldn't give for a towel...

Suddenly her foot slid against the dune, and she crashed to the ground, her hands barely stopping her from face-planting in the wet sand. It seemed as if the whole world was tilting sideways; she clawed the earth, trying to stay upright.

"What's happening?!" she gasped, looking up at the frame; the library was completely obscured in darkness, like someone had thrown a blanket over the other side.

As the beach tipped, sand tumbling around, Hermione stared up at the portrait; for a moment a sliver of light could be seen from the edge, and the library was just discernible beyond what was unmistakably a dark button-down. It was Malfoy's torso. He was doing something to the painting, and she couldn't see what it was -

"Malfoy _stop!_ " she yelled over the crash of the waves; a deep rumbling sounded, and she didn't need to look behind her to know that it was the mountains in the distance, shaking the very earth beneath her feet.

"I'm just moving—"

"Well, stop it!"

Draco dropped the painting, cringing as the gilded frame connected with the ground and the force vibrated the canvas; Hermione slid forward on the beach, the foam from the sea retracting.

"Can you warn me before you do something like that?" Hermione asked vehemently. She clambered to her feet in a huff, trainers squelching out of the wet sand. "I was just starting to dry off from the last time!"

Draco looked at the scene he had poured hours into, light, gentle strokes of clouds brushing the hazy mountain tops. The sky hung low and ever-stretching over the pristine sand; the whole thing was utterly majestic and serene... except for the broken terra-cotta pot, dirt littered around the singed corpse of the ficus tree, the soiled book, and the fuming Gryffindor in the center, shaking like a wet dog.

The whole thing was suddenly bizarrely comical, and before he knew what was happening, Draco was failing to contain his laughter as Granger squeezed the water from her sleeves. It was the first time he'd laughed in ages, but he couldn't help himself.

"Are you kidding me?" she said, glaring up at him; Draco's eyes were squeezed tight, teeth blinding as he laughed, face scrunched up.

He waved a hand at her, trying to reign in his chuckles; the whole painting looked positively absurd now, and while that in itself wasn't a funny concept—he'd poured so much time and heart into this painting, it didn't deserve to be made ridiculous—with Granger wringing out her odd muggle rags, her hair plastered to her head and ears jutting out, it was just too much.

"Stop laughing, you prick, this isn't funny!"

"It's a little funny," he defended, his cheeks pinking as he breathed. "Merlin, Granger, is that really what your hair looks like when it's wet? You look like a different person!"

"Let's tumble you around in sea water, see what you look like!" she shot back, her hands coming up to pull her lank waves away from her face. "And if you're done being unbearable, now might be a good time to fix this mess!"

He shook his head mirthfully, face still red; instead of trying to lift the painting by hand, this time he took out his wand. With one ' _wingardium leviosa_ ', now his least-favorite spell in the world, the painting hovered gently above the worn carpet; Granger swayed from side to side, her arms out as Draco leaned the landscape against the clean bookshelf. With more space to work, he sighed, looking around for his supplies.

Steady on her legs once again, Hermione put forth, "If you're painting me, I want a desk, parchment, and a quill and ink. And I need to be sitting, have a chair, perhaps an armchair—"

Draco looked at her critically. "You're not commissioning a masterpiece, Granger—I'm not going to paint you a whole bloody scene just so you can—"

"Yes, you are, _you_ put me in here!"

"If you hadn't distracted me—"

"I didn't even _do_ anything!"

" _Yes, you did!_ "

Hermione opened her mouth to argue some more, but stopped; he was always goading her, making her stoop to his level, and she was sick of it. She rubbed her temple, knowing that they wouldn't get anywhere if she let this continue. "Alright, Malfoy. I at least need some parchment and ink."

Draco sighed angrily, dropping to his haunches and poking around in his case.

"And I understand what you mean about the painting," she said, practically through her teeth, as she wanted nothing more than to continue berating him but was trying to stay calm. "But this place is unsettling, and I really need to be able to use magic for us to have the best shot at fixing this."

She wasn't sure if he heard her; he continued tinkering around in his case, pulling out a roll of parchment and a set of charcoal sticks.

"As for the spell—"

"Merlin, you're like a howler," he muttered.

Anger spiked in Hermione's heart; so much for being civil to him. She tried again. "I think we need start with the charm. I've read about it but I've never performed it before, so we need to—"

"You mean _I_ need to look into it," he interrupted. "With you about as useful as a broken broomstick it looks I'll be doing all the work here. As if I already didn't have enough—"

"Don't be like that, this is your fault."

"This is _your_ fault and you know it!"

Hermione huffed. "Either way no-one said I couldn't help you at least figure out where to start. I think we need to—"

"How do you know what to look for? You don't. _I_ know the most about enchanted art."

"You may know the paintings the best, but _I_ know the library the best," she replied swiftly. "I can find the books you need."

"And how are you going to do that, stuck in there?" Draco drawled.

"There was an art history section—"

"I know that," he grumbled.

" _Let me finish_. There was an art history section towards the back of the room. We can start there—"

"It's all in rubble!"

"Well, it looks like you're going to have to help me, doesn't it?" she declared heavily, her hands coming down to her sides.

Draco looked behind them at the general ruin of the library; Hermione had organized the majority of the books into teetering stacks, but there were still rogue stones, singed wood and saturated wads of paper scattered over the filthy, worn carpet.

"Ah, hell," he sighed.

* * *

 _Author's Note (12/09/18)_ : Wow! Thank you to all the lovely readers and reviewers! Such a great response to the first chapter, I'm so grateful. This concept has been incubating for a long time, I'm glad it's finally manifesting. See you next week for another chapter!


	3. Carmine

_"We live in a rainbow of chaos."—Paul Cezanne_

 **Chapter Three: Carmine**

It had been at least an hour since McGonagall departed, and Malfoy was ignoring her, taking a break from getting on her nerves to start the portrait.

Or so Hermione hoped; for a while, it seemed like he was just scratching away with his charcoal sticks, but when she accosted him with an ornery _'what are you doing?!_ ' he told her stiffly that he was planning it.

She found it hard to believe that Malfoy was indeed planning the portrait because he hadn't so much as glanced at her. If he was planning it wouldn't he need to look at her? She'd felt slightly ill at the idea of him needing to examine her face for long stretches of time, and had braced for that discomfort only to find him with his head down, eyes glued to his parchment. Scratchedy-scratch went his charcoal stick. He might as well have been doodling like he used to do in class. When she finally got a glimpse of what he was making, it was just lines with an amorphous shape in the middle.

She knew he had gotten bored with his charcoal sketches when he sighed irritably and pushed the parchment aside; Hermione looked up at the frame, releasing the sand she was raking with her fingers.

"Are you about to do some research?" she asked.

His only response was a heavy sigh, obnoxious and dismissive. Hermione clenched her jaw, raking her nails through the luminescent sand beneath her once more.

She tried again. "Well, I've been thinking and I want to understand more about the etymology of the charm. What was the incantation again?"

Draco said nothing, just rearranged the stack of books next to him and took up a large tome— _The Baroque Masters_ , an art history book.

"Malfoy, what—"

"Do you ever shut up?" he scathed.

Hermione fumed. "I'm trying to help you, prick, can you stop being awful for a minute and listen to me?"

"When you have something useful to say, I'll consider it," he retorted, flipping through the old book aimlessly. The pages were wavy and stiff—the book must have been soaked from the rain last week.

"I'm not just blowing smoke, this could really help us," Hermione sighed, wringing her hands. "You could undo the charm the traditional way. But the likelihood that I'll just be frozen in here is pretty great, so that's off the table."

Malfoy nodded absently, still flipping. Good, he was listening at least.

Hermione continued. "But we know that there is some logic in the charm-or a similar charm-that can transfer objects into paintings. If we can isolate that piece, evolve it—there may be a way to reverse it."

"Break down the charm? That's going to take... "

"I know it's going to take a fair amount of research, but I think that's our best bet. Unless you have any other ideas?"

Draco breathed in slowly, then out through his nose as irritation bubbled in his chest; Granger was hopelessly insufferable, even now. He turned a page. "Well, since magic doesn't seem to be working on your end you probably can't apparate or create a portkey. Not that I've ever seen someone take a portkey from a painting but..."

Hermione cocked her head to the side; it was kind of an interesting thought, the idea of using traditional means of transportation to get from a fictional place to a real place. There was something there... she filed away the idea for later and said, "Right. No magic in here, so the magic needs to come from your end."

Draco ran a hand through his hair, his eyebrows furrowed. His knees rose, propping his book up further.

"Is there any chance you remember what you said? What you did?"

He shook his head.

"McGonagall has a pensieve, maybe you can—"

"It wasn't what I said that was the problem," he muttered, flipping a page. "You did something that distracted me."

"Stop blaming me," she warned. "It doesn't matter, we just need to figure out if something about the way you messed up—"

"I didn't _mess up_ , you were being obnoxiously loud!" he hissed.

"Okay, okay, forget it! Jeez..."

Malfoy went back to reading his book. "Besides, I can't just repeat the same charm, it won't work," he finished.

Hermione sighed angrily. "I'm not saying we need to do the same messed-up charm again, I'm saying that if we know what you did we can break it apart and—"

"How am I supposed to know which part of the charm malfunctioned from a memory?"

Hermione clenched her hands, letting the sand drain from her fists. Raking her fingers through the sand was minorly satisfying her need to strangle something, and she concentrated on that for a moment.

"I'm going to find more history books," Draco muttered, uncrossing his legs and stretching to his feet.

* * *

As he dug into his reading, Draco was able to let go of the urgency to find an answer and simply enjoy the immersion in the lives of the old painting masters. These great men and women of the past had been celebrated for their mastery of hand, their flawless replication of famous wizards. The Malfoy family had even commissioned portraits from some of them. Those portraits were likely more valuable than some of the exquisite decorative pieces found in Draco's ancestral home.

With the introduction of photography into the wizarding world in the early 20th century, the art of portraiture became reserved for only the most elite and celebrated members of society. Or, anyone who could afford the steep price point, which as the century neared completion, mostly consisted of the last few old wizarding families left in Europe.

Draco knew that what happened earlier in the day had to have happened before. It wasn't possible that this was the first instance of a person being trapped in a painting... well, it was possible, but unlikely. He remembered reading somewhere about an artist who used real objects in their paintings, and vaguely knew that there had been a political backlash because of it, but he couldn't remember the artist's name or when they had lived.

History was straightforward; things happened and they were documented. Sure, people had different interpretations of events, and despite attempting to be immune to the pulls of their opinion, historical authors sometimes let their own ideas infiltrate their writings. But history could still be relied upon to reveal eras and events long forgotten by the living.

Based on Draco's knowledge of art history, he knew it was possibly a Baroque period artist that had used real objects in their art. It had to be someone who relied on their paintings for income, so it couldn't be a court painter. Likely it was someone with an independent workshop... either way, the answer was here in the library somewhere. Draco just had to find it.

He tossed the book he was reading aside, sighing irritably as it skidded over the threadbare carpet. The more he flipped through the dirty tomes around him, the less he believed that finding the solution would be easy. If only the library wasn't so disorganized, he could actually pick up book after book with some level of accuracy. But as it stood, he had to slide books out of Granger's precarious stacks, and even sift through some of the books still heaped together in piles, all dusted with gritty ash and dirt. His hands had been covered in the stuff earlier, and eventually he'd given up on _scourgify_ , as he had to repeat the charm every time he rummaged around.

Draco looked down at his charcoal sketches, unceremoniously spread over the floor, curling into luminescent tubes as the hot sun bore through the room.

A change of pace would help ebb the irritation he felt towards this task, towards the ruin of the library that made searching for an answer so difficult.

He sincerely doubted that painting Granger's portrait would actually work, but a direct order from McGonagall was a direct order, and it gave him a distraction. He could quietly grumble about the annoying Gryffindor while he sketched, taking out his frustration on his parchment.

Portraits were only commissioned by great wizards and witches, people with value and clout. It was unheard of to paint a portrait of an average person, or even a muggleborn for that matter. Draco could count on one hand the number of muggleborn portraits he'd read about. Sure, there were very few truly pureblood wizards anymore, as everyone had likely tainted their bloodline over time, but it was still such an odd concept: a muggleborn, deserving a portrait.

On top of that, Granger had no idea how ungrateful she was being, demanding this and that from her scene. She was lucky she was even getting a painting at all.

Despite these ideas, once he was sketching Draco was able to let go of his anger at her and just simmer in the familiar rhythm of planning a painting, something that activated a deep part of his imagination. There were always ways to take something mundane—for instance, a portrait of a muggleborn sitting at a desk—and infuse it with extraordinary ideas. That essence of innovation and freedom was what made Draco enjoy this so much.

There was nothing safer, or more satisfying, than being the master of what he created.

Any thoughts or feelings he had could be dissected and translated into form, color and shape. His ideology could be inferred from the objects he placed in his scenes and their symbolic meanings. And in that way, when he created something he wasn't just painting, but crafting a story.

And Merlin, did he have a story to tell about that damn Gryffindor.

The urge to eviscerate her in art was all too tempting. He would show her in a tiny, cramped composition to allude to her small-minded nature. India ink smeared hands, turned reddish brown, the color of dried blood. Pinched, self-righteous expression that got on his nerves—when her brows were furrowed and her lips pursed. Odd muggle rags in muted browns. Granger would be all shades of ochre and umber, the colors of a mudblood.

He'd save her eyes for last, as he didn't want that odd sense of confusion to overtake him, like it had when he'd casted the charm. Whatever that feeling was had tampered with the charm, though how, he couldn't quite remember.

After settling on a composition that seemed right—he'd figure out the details later, as he didn't really want to stare at Granger at this moment to start sketching her—he set down his charcoal drawings and rose to his knees to rummage in the stacks surrounding him.

Granger had proposed that they break down the magical properties of the charm, but that was even more daunting of an undertaking. They'd have to research the etymology, the mental model, and even examine how the different charm properties affected each other... it was too much. And with the library completely disorganized, it was next to impossible to search for the right materials.

Draco sighed irritably, once again reminded of the scruffy goodie-good sitting in the middle of his beach, tainting its simple purity with her huffing and scratching. She was making patterns in the sand with her nails, not unlike the sandy meditation patterns he'd seen in Japan. He wanted to snap at her to _cut it out_ , but he knew that trying to speak to her was going to do nothing but ruffle her Gryffindor mane, and he didn't want to try to get her to shut up again.

* * *

With several hours fritted away, sunset was fast approaching on Malfoy's end and Hermione was getting antsy. They were no closer to figuring out what had happened than they'd been that morning, and Malfoy's angular face was ridiculously irking and oh-so-punchable the more he brushed her off.

After a while he'd given up on his books to start prepping a canvas for the portrait, but he'd quickly gotten annoyed at something or other, the wood or the canvas or the white gunk he was smearing over it, Hermione couldn't be sure, and had gone back into the swaying stacks of books to find more research material.

The tiny Art History section of the library seemed to be mostly dispersed between three piles, and luckily the shelf still held some of its books. This should have made the search for an answer easier, but with Hermione stuck in the painting, she could not search herself, and had to rely on Malfoy's sense of what was important.

This presented a problem.

"Why are you still reading history books?" Hermione asked, leaning forward off the sand, squinting at the spine. "We need to start understanding the etymology of the charm so we can—"

Malfoy didn't look up, flipping through the book in his fingers as he sat down in front of the canvas. "Someone has to have done this before," he muttered distractedly. "I remember something about it. But it's easier if I know how that artist—"

"Malfoy, we need to understand what the charm really does!"

"I know what the charm does—"

" _No_ , clearly none of you artists do, because this place is _real_. It's physical in some way. Everything I've read about charming art is that it's just a way to get the scene to move. Whatever this is," she gestured around, waving at the sky, "it's not just a simple movement charm."

"Of course it isn't," Draco dismissed, "but it is highly evolved magic, to understand the makeup of the charm would take—"

"Well if you don't want to break the charm apart, we at least need to know the history of the charm itself. I can guarantee that over time the spell was refined to what we have today."

Draco shook his head. "The spell was invented during the Baroque period. It's barely changed since then if at all."

Hermione sighed. This was one thing she didn't understand about the wizarding world. There were much easier ways to do things, but wizards were so stuck with their traditions and ideas that they refused to innovate. If she could respect Professor Snape as a teacher for one thing, it was his innovation in the art of potion-making. He didn't just blindly follow precedence: he improved concocting methods, ultimately making his potions more powerful.

She found it hard to believe that _not a single wizard_ for the past few hundred years had tried this with the painting charm.

"If the spell was invented during the Baroque period," Hermione argued, "how would you explain the paintings at Hogwarts dating back to the 1100s?"

"Obviously they were retroactively charmed by later artists. Wandwork back in the early 12th century was very rudimentary."

"Rudimentary, yet unbounded," she retorted. "So in theory, a previous spell would have been more pure. More powerful."

"The charm didn't exist back then! There's no record of it—"

"No, the spell has to have been altered from a previous version. And if we're going to figure this out, we need to find the original charm!"

"How do you know the original charm holds the answer?"

"I _don't_ know, but we have to start somewhere!"

Draco rubbed his temple, closing the large copy of _Early 15th Century Art and Sculpture_. "I'm already starting somewhere, Granger."

"I know, but I'm saying that—"

"Look, I know it's driving you mental that you can't look for yourself, but as long as I'm the one who can search, we do this my way," he said evenly. "Despite what you think, I know a lot more about art magic than you."

"You may know more about art magic, but _I_ know a lot more about spell creation."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because I've been studying it for four years!" she hissed.

"And how do you know that I haven't been studying it as well?"

"I... " She stopped, recognizing that she was arguing for the sake of arguing because she was angry.

Hermione faltered, taking a calming breath, and tried again. "Alright, Malfoy. Let's say you have been studying it. If that's the case, you would know that spells, as they are created, need to be refined to be useful. In their reckless, original states, they are more likely to kill you than do what you want them to do. Yet in their original state they are likely to be more potent, as the refinement process reigns in this power."

"Yes, yes," he said flippantly, "but you're forgetting that the caster's magic and intention is the main source of power—"

"I know, I was getting to that—"

"Why can't you just let me do this?!"

"Because I don't want you to screw it up again!"

When she met his eyes, he was glaring at her with a fire she hadn't seen in a long time—eyes blazing, nostrils flared, lips set in a hard line. She picked back over what she said, and hazily realized that she had insulted him in a way that she actively tried not to insult anyone, not only because it was petty and self-serving, but because it was a high insult to be called bad at magic—magic was an essential part of who they _were_.

Hermione took a step back on the sand. The only sound for a moment was the waves at her feet.

Draco stood suddenly, towering over the painting, his hair shielding his expression.

Finally he turned, his form getting smaller. "Damn mudblood thinking you know _everything_ about magic..." he grumbled as he walked away.

Hermione's heart sank, the warm breeze turning chilly as she fell to the sand, sliding down the dune. She stared down the beach, numb; the waves crashed beyond the frame, curls and webs of white and reflected lilac falling into and out of each other.

Of all that had happened in the past eight hours, this was nothing to be upset about, but she couldn't help the deep disappointment and fatigue weighing down her heart, the same fatigue that made her frustrated with her world, made her desperate to prove that she belonged there.

Hermione sighed heavily, willing her eyes to stop prickling as she laid back on the soft sand, knowing that her hair was going to be full of it but not caring at the moment. Let the sand claim her hair, weave its fingers into her scalp, peel back the hoods of her eyes, and drain into her open mouth. Let the beach cave in like quicksand and swallow her whole, muffling that angry red and purple sky into darkness, muffling Draco Malfoy's voice as he chanted _mudblood, mudblood, mudblood_ from the frame. Let it blanket every hair on her arms that too closely resembled the stroke of a brush, every hopeful spike in her heart that oh goodness, they had finally figured it out—nope, try again. Let the beach claim her and end the pain that she'd been running from since that first time Ron had mocked her for her scholastic intensity, or Malfoy had swiped her books out of her arms, or Snape had looked down his crooked nose at her perfectly brewed potion simply for the colors of the tie that hung over it.

And while she was escaping, she could muffle the rest as well—the vague knowledge of death claiming people she'd considered family; the hundreds of witches and wizards still missing in their community; the young lives that were cut too short, too soon. The oily fingers of death were surprisingly nimble and steadfast when gripping the souls of her friends. Death had been elusive to her but not to them. Not to them.

Hermione sighed, her breath free and clear despite the sand, which had moulded to the shape of her back. Whenever she closed her eyes it seemed that she ended up back there, in some deep corner of her mind where death was consuming and she was weightless, lost, confused and yet filled with infinite understanding of it all, but with a childlike determination that it wasn't fair and could not stand. She wanted to bang her fists against the floor like a toddler. How come she got so much time and them so little? The simplest of questions would stab out from behind her eyes, flood her arms until they were shaking, congeal and boulder in her throat. But then she would haze over, and the question would dissipate as she breathed, until she was nothing more than a walking shell trying to remain upright.

She welcomed the haze now to bring her back to rationality, back to logic, her safe space. Matter could not be created or destroyed, it had to start somewhere and go somewhere. The world was made up of laws and nature followed them unquestioningly and mostly without fail. It had been a spell to put her here and would be a spell to put her back where she belonged. They would figure it out eventually; yes, Malfoy was a prick, but she'd already known that.

Hermione lifted her head off the sand and shimmied up to a sitting position. The beach was unchanged. No matter what happened on the other side of the canvas this world remained the same, the tide becoming scary occasionally, yes, but still faithfully crashing. The sky had yet to change color, though the clouds seemed to be moving; it was still the same intense purple and red, like the innards of a carnivorous flower.

While there were certainly worse places she could have been trapped—the cells under Malfoy Manor came to mind, as did the dark, moody portraits of fantastic beasts littered in the library—there was something here that frightened her, something that had her on edge constantly.

She really wouldn't be this combative usually; she knew when to put aside her personal thoughts about someone to get something done. But... Malfoy really did bring the worst out of her. And Hermione was starting to suspect that his painting was doing the same.

She sat up suddenly and looked behind her; the rolling hills were still there, as were the mountains in the distance.

For the first time she actually felt curious enough about this place to explore. Fear of disappearing or befalling some other odd fate had kept her within sight of the suspended gilded frame at all times before, but now she was anxious to walk.

She stood carefully on the white sand, took a calming breath, and began hiking up the hill, towards where the sand became long grass.

At least this place was beautiful, and it was easy to traverse; she could see for miles in every direction it seemed, except for the odd black expanse to the left and right of the beach.

She wondered just how far she could walk before the black expanse would consume the path ahead; it seemed to claim any area not in direct view of the canvas. In fact, if she made it all the way up the mountains in the distance, it was likely that the other side of them would just be black, unseen by the frame of this world and thus unable to exist.

Were all paintings like this? Their own little universes, trapped within a bubble? Separate from the rest of the world, miniature scenes like snippets from a play? How could something like this exist and no one knew?

Someone had to have done this before, there was no possible way that wizards had gone centuries creating magically-enhanced works of art without figuring out what they were actually doing.

That sense of defiant hope bloomed in her heart again; they would figure this out, of course they would. She'd figured out many things in her life, she could do this. She just needed to come to Malfoy with a plan, and be persuasive. He couldn't ignore logic... could he?

* * *

Draco was walking slowly again, trying to delay his fate. The oak doors to the Great Hall stood proudly at the end of the corridor, but with every step he felt that they were getting further away.

By the time he made it to the doors, the somber mutterings of the volunteers beyond, Draco was practically inching forward, his feet shuffling against the cold stone.

They were all going to hex him silly.

One moment, he'd be standing there, and the next he would be a puddle of goo, oozing across the stone floor. He imagined McGonagall stepping over his gelatinous mass and plucking his wand out of the gook to snap it.

Draco shook that odd vision away, took a breath, and pushed open the doors, cringing as they croaked.

The tables were sparser than they had been the day before, and based on the wispy murmurs Draco immediately knew that something else had happened, likely having to do with the castle restoration or the grounds. The hall was oddly quiet, quiet enough that he could hear the sound of the trees outside from the hole in the rafters. The clink of cutlery against metal plates rang out like tiny funeral chimes.

Everything that had happened between him and Granger earlier in the day suddenly seemed so trivial, so unimportant in the face of the rest of the restoration effort.

He'd heard the stories, swapped quietly over dinner after he arrived. The team working on the facade had found body parts one day, severed and crushed under massive chunks of stone. Another time, Patil had found a comatose second-year student under one of the fallen staircases, and hadn't spoken for days afterward. Draco couldn't imagine what that was like, peering around every brick, every stone, every odd splatter of dark liquid and praying that there wasn't a body there. Even just cleaning blood off of one of the paintings a few days prior was enough to make him retch unceremoniously off the edge of the library and onto the dirt below.

It seemed that the thing with Granger would be more bad news, more tinder for the hellfire.

Draco craned to get a look at the platters of food, checking to see what was on the menu, but truthfully he couldn't even think about eating. His stomach was in knots; he just had to get this over with.

It was like stepping up to a guillotine, approaching the head table, but he couldn't slow down now. As he neared, McGonagall looked up at Draco questioningly, and he was ashamed to see a glimmer of hope in her eyes, quickly dashed when he shook his head. She finished swallowing and stood, coming around to stand next to him at the head of the room.

"Your attention, everyone," she called, and the room immediately fell silent as all eyes settled on them. Draco kept his gaze down, but in his peripherals he could see people's furrowed eyebrows and hear their mutterings— _what is he doing up there?_

"There has been an accident in the library," McGonagall began. "Before I get into the details, let me assure you that the situation is being handled by Mr. Malfoy here, as he is the best equipped to rectify it."

"What happened?" someone called. A few murmurs spread throughout the sparsely occupied tables.

"Miss Granger has become trapped in an oil painting," the professor said simply. "But besides her confinement is otherwise unharmed—"

Ron Weasley launched up, his plate jumping as he knocked it with his elbow; Mrs. Weasley's hand flew over her mouth, her eyes wide.

" _Trapped?!_ " Ron exclaimed. "How?!"

Draco's head descended a few centimeters unwillingly as his heart began to beat without control; Professor McGonagall looked at him for a moment, her glare searing the side of his face, before she said evenly, "That is unclear. But it is clear that she will be alright. Mr. Malfoy will see to that."

"He'll _see_ to it?" Hannah asked.

"He'll be fixing it," McGonagall corrected. "He will also be taking over restorations of the library in the meantime, so for those of you taking your N.E.W.T.s you know who to ask for research material."

Weasley ran a tense hand through his hair, looking back at his classmates.

"Where is Hermione?" Longbottom asked, the people around him nodding at his question.

"She is in the library still, and may appreciate visitors, as she cannot move from place to place that easily. Mr. Malfoy, where is she?"

Draco raised his eyes to the room, which had broken out into offhand conversation and murmurs, and was surprised to see that no one was glaring at him. He cleared his throat and responded, "Leaning against the wall near the door. On top of the other paintings."

"She's leaning—oh," Luna murmured, seeming to understand.

"Urgh, _everything_ in the damn castle is malfunctioning..."

"What a horrible day..."

"Is—can we see her now? Is she okay?"

"Yes and yes," McGonagall returned. "I'm sure Mr. Malfoy wouldn't mind waiting a few minutes while you speak to her."

Of course he didn't mind, he'd been arguing with her for hours and after that last tiff, she was lucky that he hadn't incinerated the damn painting with her still in it.

He looked up carefully, consciously schooling his features so that any traces of his thoughts wouldn't show. The room wasn't paying him much attention, beyond the occasional grumble about talking to _him_ when a reference book was needed, and it would do more good to grab a pensieve and relive the classes instead of even sharing space with him.

Draco sighed discreetly, somewhat comforted by the fact that no-one seemed to be blaming him for what happened. He only had McGonagall to thank for that however, for as soon as Granger got ahold of her friends they would hear the real story, and then all Draco could do was pray that they cursed him enough to put him in the hospital wing so he wouldn't have to deal with any of this anymore.

As the members of the Great Hall chattered dejectedly, shoveling last bites of food into their mouths as they stood, Draco faced McGonagall as she made to sit back at the head table.

"Professor..."

McGonagall stopped, but didn't turn to him. "Yes?"

Draco swallowed and asked, "Will you be reporting this to the Wizengamot?"

She looked back at him, the way one looks at a bit of dragon dung at the bottom of their shoe—resigned and disgusted—and sighed heavily.

"Instead of worrying about your own fate, why don't you worry about the fate of Miss Granger," McGonagall replied sternly.

Draco's hands shook as he averted his eyes. McGonagall always had a way of effortlessly making him feel guilty.

The teacher sighed, pursing her lips, her attention turning gentle. "I'm sorry for being short with you earlier, Draco. But you must understand—now is not the time to be dabbling in leisure pursuits, or daydreaming when you're supposed to be casting very complicated charms. Do you see what can happen when you aren't careful, aren't focused?"

Draco said nothing, his gaze far away.

"Have you at the very least figured out what went wrong, so that it doesn't happen again?"

Draco tried to look unaffected, but he couldn't help but cluck a little; it was exactly what Granger had suggested earlier. The way the two former Gryffindors thought was so similar it was uncanny. "I'm working on it, Professor," he murmured.

"I believe that you may have some luck with Professor Flitwick. He isn't one for creative pastimes such as painting, so I don't imagine he'll have studied the charm in depth, but he may be able to give you insight into what happened. He's created many charms in his day."

Draco raised his gaze to the head table. Flitwick was chatting quietly with Professor Slughorn, their voices low and tight. The food before them was untouched.

"I can tell you that if you don't fix this soon, I'll be forced to inform the Wizengamot, as it may impact the terms of your release. I imagine that returning Miss Granger to normal will take a significant amount of research, and I'd rather you prioritize that over Hogwart's art collection." She paused, waiting for him to meet her eyes again, and put forth, "And Malfoy..."

Draco looked up, his stomach twisting again.

"I understand that you and Miss Granger haven't always been on the best of terms. But unfortunately, you are her only chance at the moment. I trust that you can see past your history and get this done." She sighed, and finished, "For both your sakes."

* * *

Hermione raked the grass beside her, pulling the sharp blades through her clenched fists. It was the kind of grass that grew on the lawns of English manor houses, shapely and dignified, but it had been made long, flowing, and slightly dry, producing an odd effect of fantastical elegance. It was like a posh person pretending to be homeless. It was exactly how a person who'd never seen real wild grass before would paint wild grass.

The meadow above the beach extended too far into the distance to traverse easily, and so after only twenty minutes of wading through the tall blades, parting the grass in her wake, Hermione had turned back towards the water. When she finally reached the edge of the meadow, where the blades protruded from patches of white sand, she sat, sighing heavily.

She felt so out of control, so helpless, stuck here with only Malfoy to rely on. Her wand was apparently useless, the potted plant still dead, and the old _A History of Magic_ irrelevant. What she wouldn't give just for a different book to read...

As Hermione pulled the grass between her fingers, she thought she heard her name drifting over the breeze.

She tensed automatically, annoyance spiking in her chest. She didn't want to see him right now, didn't want to face the boy who consistently made her feel inferior, made her question her place in a world she'd worked so hard to protect.

Something about the call was different, though, and after a moment she realized what it was; someone had said her given name, not her surname, so it couldn't be Malfoy... could it?

Was... was someone in here with her?!

Hermione stood slowly, looking around carefully as though if she moved too suddenly the intruder would pounce on her.

"Hermione?"

That had been unmistakable this time—Neville's voice. Unless he managed to get stuck in here as well, he was likely standing in front of the frame.

Hermione grounded her nerves and began trekking over the hill, towards the expanse of beach. She had been so ready to fight with Malfoy again she was oddly calmed by the realization that she had friendly company to look forward to. She listened closely to the chatter, taking comfort in the sound of Neville's voice.

As she neared the gilded frame, her trainers sliding in the sand, she recognized at least six people crammed in the suspended rectangle of space, all peering around as she approached.

"Are you alright?" Padma called.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Hermione sighed, only slightly sarcastic as she crossed her arms in front of the frame.

"How did you get in there?"

"What happened?"

"McGonagall said that Malfoy is doing the library now—"

"We had pudding today, it was wonderful—"

"One at a time, please," the curly-haired witch sighed, rubbing her temple. Her friends shuffled in the frame.

"How are you getting out?" Ron asked evenly.

"I don't know," she replied. "We haven't worked that part out yet."

"You don't know?"

" _Yes,_ sometimes there are things I don't know," she snapped. "We haven't been able to find a record of someone taking an object out of a painting yet."

Her classmates faltered, their heads getting a little smaller in the frame as they leaned away.

As Padma and Neville glanced at each other, Hermione sighed and said, "I'm sorry, I'm just... it's been a trying day."

"It's okay, Hermione, we understand," Luna put forth. "I'd be irritable and rude if I was stuck in there too—"

"Are you sure you're okay?" Neville asked, his voice steady but eyes glossy.

Hermione nodded. "Yeah... I'm alright. I just want to get out. And we're working on it."

"Let us know if we can do anything..."

"No, don't worry," Hermione waved, her heart filling with warmth for the first time since she became trapped. "We'll figure out how to fix this. I've been in worse situations."

The group smiled sadly, glancing at each other; this was true, they'd managed to get out of other predicaments before. In fact, this was the least perilous thing that had happened to one of them in a while. It was honestly reminiscent of the sort of accidents that frequently occurred during class.

"Hermione, do you know how you got stuck in there?" Ron asked. "I know a lot of the paintings are malfunctioning, but... I don't know about you lot, but I've never seen this painting before."

Hermione opened her mouth, and then noticed a small head in the distance behind one of the shelves, the head of a person who was watching the exchange intently.

So Malfoy was here, waiting for her friends to leave so he could continue working. She locked eyes with him for a moment, before he looked away and began rummaging around in the book pile she'd been sorting the previous day.

"I... well, Malfoy was charming this painting, and I was nearby. And—well, you can see what a mess it is in here. Something was bound to happen."

The group nodded; it seems like they could feel it too—the dysfunctional energy surrounding the castle that felt like a prickling at the back of one's neck. There were so many broken charms, so many shattered magical objects and traces of protective, defensive, and offensive spells, that walking through the corridors felt distinctly unsafe. There was a reason why not many people had decided to stay and help; within a few hours of the battle, people were already having accidents around the castle. Filch had fallen from a staircase, putting him in the hospital with a nasty broken bone that at his age, required more than a healing charm. Luna had been nearly crushed by falling stone as she helped with the facade; luckily Professor Flitwick was as quick as he was proficient at levitation charms, and levitated the thing inches away from Luna's confused head.

Other students that had fought in the battle had gone home to rejoin their families, regroup and pick up the pieces of their lives; one by one they drifted away, and McGonagall's idea to have some students retake their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s was the main thing that was keeping a few of the stragglers here. But no more than two dozen students had stayed, and the adults were coming and going as they helped with the castle and their own families and homes.

"Did I miss anything?" Hermione asked. "It's only been a few hours but I feel like it's been days."

The group collectively stiffened, and Hermione's half-formed smile dropped.

"They, uh, found some more bodies outside the grounds," Padma murmured, her eyes downcast.

Hermione's throat constricted, and she nodded, staring at the waves at her feet, checking to make sure she was still firmly planted on the ground.

"They've um, figured out where they're coming from. It was the spiders... they've been... dragging the dead into the forest. Presumably for food. Professor Slughorn sent an owl to the Auror Office."

Hermione nodded numbly. "Yeah, acromantula will eat any medium-sized mammal. Even a centaur or a human if they can."

Neville cleared his throat and put forth, "Professor Sprout and I were checking the edge of the forest by the greenhouses a little while ago. We made a perimeter, and I feel like we got most of them. The Aurors will investigate the acromantula lair, and take care of the remains."

She didn't want to ask the question, the one that was on the tip of her tongue; she looked up at the creased faces crammed around the frame, searching their eyes.

"All the ones we found were adults," Neville said quickly. "Lots of black robes. We think they're mostly Death Eaters."

"Not that it makes it any better," Padma added, "but at the very least there weren't any student remains. I guess we'll have to see when the Aurors come to identify them."

"Yeah. Maybe knock a few of the missing Death Eaters off their list," Ron sighed.

The group shuffled around the frame, all looking away. Hermione searched their faces; what she wouldn't give to hug them, tell them it was going to be alright. But with her stuck here, the only thing she could do was rock on the sand.

She cleared her throat. "How is, um, the rest of the castle going? Hannah?"

"To be expected," the blonde replied. "Finally starting to see some progress though. The first-floor classrooms are mostly back in order, and we've fixed all the desks we could find."

"Yes, the south end of the castle is nearly done," Terry put forth. "We should be able to bring supplies and such to the courtyard once we get the bridge back up."

"Speaking of which, we've got to get Gryffindor Tower up. Thank Merlin no one was in there when it fell... it was impaled over the south end terrace."

"Are you all going to be okay without the library for a bit? I know you're trying to study as soon as possible..." Hermione murmured.

"Honestly, I can't imagine studying right now. No idea how Neville is doing it," Ron said, nudging his friend.

"Well, a lot of the information is still fresh," he defended. "As is the exam. I thought I should start early."

Hermione nodded approvingly. "Yes, that's an excellent idea." She paused. "Look, I'll be here, and you know where I am. I don't want to keep you."

"Nonsense," Ron said, "a few of us will stay if you need company."

She did want them to stay desperately but didn't want to tether them to the library, especially if Malfoy was going to be there.

"No, it's alright," Hermione sighed. "You know where I am. I'll see you all later?"

The group nodded and murmured goodbyes, Hannah and Padma waving as they retreated. As the others departed, Ron looked behind him, then leaned into the frame, his form filling up the canvas.

"Hermione, do you want us to owl Harry? Do you think it will take more than a few days to get you back to normal?"

Hermione shook her head. "I'm not sure... and I know he's busy, I don't want to pester him... ah, but I know he'd be upset if we didn't tell him. You know how he gets."

Ron nodded, scratching the back of his head. "Alright then, I'll send him an owl."

"Okay," she replied. "See you guys later."

Neville and Ron waved, their faces creased with concern; Hermione smiled hopefully, wanting to put them at ease. As they turned away, she sighed heavily. Instead of just standing around awkwardly on the sand, she turned and trudged back up the hill, towards the long, sandy grasses behind the beach.

With the suspended frame out of sight and the wind going steadily, Hermione pretended that she wasn't trapped, and instead was on holiday. It was still sunset, as it had been since she arrived, and she imagined that it would be nightfall soon, and she could curl up in a seaside cabin with her latest transfiguration spell guide and read into the late evening, until the sky was nothing but a black wash.

But she couldn't pretend everything was okay, because that was just a fantasy. Even in this picturesque—albeit shocking—landscape, there was something eerie that made her always look over her shoulder, made her skin crawl and breath shallow.

She knew that she was somewhat safe, that there were no creatures or other humans painted into this landscape and so ostensibly nothing could harm her directly, but... she felt like this world was... wrong. It felt too perfect, in a way that made porcelain dolls look scary rather than cute, made high-society confections look like they were made of plastic.

When Hermione came back to the beach, her cardigan pulled tight around her shoulders, Malfoy was seated in front of the canvas again, his head in his hand, elbow propped up on the oversized tome he was reading. Next to him a fresh palette sat, paint glossy as it reflected the last licks of the falling sun.

Hermione sat gingerly on the warm sand. She reached forward and undid her shoelaces, kicking off her shoes and pushing her freed toes into the dune. She had no idea how long she would be there, but was already tired of her clothes, dirty and heavy against her skin. The salt from the water had done a number on her hair, stripping out the curl and making it fall in crunchy, lank waves. She brushed a sandy hand over the dark tresses, still somewhat damp from the earlier attempt at moving the canvas.

As she sat, she suddenly realized that she had been milling around the scene for hours, but had yet to feel the urge to eat, or use the toilet. She did feel vaguely nauseous, the way she'd felt this morning, but she didn't feel the traditional pangs of hunger.

It was almost as if the painting induced a sense of stasis, unchanging and purgatorial. It was certainly an odd thought, but with the sunset still hovering over the horizon as it had been for the past several hours, it seemed like the most likely explanation. Hermione pondered this, weighing what she knew about magical art and what she knew about the world she was in.

Nothing appeared to change here, not the tide nor the sky, nor the occasional breath of warm wind blowing through her clothing. She wondered what would happen if she stayed here for months; would she continue to age? Would her hair get longer, or would it stay at the same length? And if that happened, what would happen to her if she escaped?

The figures depicted in the artwork around the castle never changed; they moved around and spoke, and learned new things to some degree, but they didn't age. They didn't appear to have new or unique ideas, at least that Hermione had seen. And while they seemed to think for themselves, it was unclear what they could actually achieve independently from what some artist had conceived for them.

This notion worried her; she knew that only the most accomplished artists could bring their subjects to life in a way that was true to who they were. So what did that mean for her and Malfoy? If he painted her given what he knew about her, would he be painting _her_ , or a caricature?

Hermione sighed. This is what Malfoy meant, when he said that he'd only be painting a "shade."

If he had actually said it in a way that wasn't so combative, maybe she would have picked up on it earlier, but she'd been too distracted by his indifference to think about it.

"Malfoy," she said quietly.

He didn't look up from his reading.

She tried again. "Malfoy, I believe you, that painting my portrait wouldn't work."

He huffed disinterestedly, his eyes following lines of cramped text.

"I still think you should try, but if it doesn't work we need to tackle this from another angle; besides, the only benefit is being able to use magic and... get off this beach before something happens to me." Hermione's neck prickled, and she instinctively glanced behind her, but there was nothing there. She cleared her throat and continued, "If you're going to try to find if someone has done this before in history, I'd like to start understanding the charm. So we can break it apart."

She knew he was listening; the only sounds coming from his end were the wind and the muttering of the other paintings in the room.

"She's talking to you, lad," Sir Galahad put forth. "Don't you think you owe her an ear?"

Draco's book slid down his lap as he glared over his shoulder at the knight, who raised his hands innocently.

"I don't need your commentary, knight," Draco grumbled, turning back to his book, his eyebrows creased.

"Malfoy, please," Hermione reasoned. "Can you just prop a book up for me? It doesn't have to just be you figuring this out. I can help us."

Draco sighed heavily. "If I prop up the book detailing the painting charm, will you be quiet for the rest of the day?"

Irritation boiled in Hermione's gut, but she nodded silently, clenching her jaw. When he was so insufferable, she could barely feel good about him pulling out a slim, hard-bound book titled _A Painters Guide to Enchantment._ He flipped three pages, muttered _imobulus,_ and dropped the open book in front of the frame. It thudded against the worn carpet.

"Thank you," she muttered, happy that the book was shielding the majority of Malfoy's infuriating face from view.

True to her word, Hermione didn't speak to him for the rest of the evening. Once she finished reading about the charm, going over the section one, two, three times, she picked up the dirty copy of _A History of Magic_ instead, flipping to the tiny section about enchanted art in order to give herself something to do.

After a spell, a yawn sounded from the frame, and Hermione peered around the book to see Malfoy standing.

"Your weasel is here," he muttered.

He swatted the book away from the frame, and it fell to the carpet and closed. Hermione rubbed her eyes, cringing against the grit in the corners.

Malfoy loudly stacked the books around him, then didn't so much glance at Ron as the speckled redhead closed in on the painting.

"Well, he's as cheerful as a soggy biscuit, isn't he?" Ron put forth, watching Malfoy as he continued stacking books near the entrance, his back bent, spine jutting through his shirt.

"Isn't he always?" Hermione retorted, setting her book on the sand next to her.

Ron knelt in front of the frame, resting his hand on the top; it tipped slightly, and Hermione felt the earth rumble just a little.

"Is he really the only one who can help you? I mean, McGonagall must have connections with some famous artist somewhere..."

Hermione shook her head. "Everyone is still scattered. I'm sure a lot of people haven't even come out of hiding yet... would they really believe _The Prophet_ telling them that the war is over and they can come out, come out, where ever they are? Probably not." Hermione huffed, crossing her arms. "Apparently McGonagall would rather have Malfoy repair the paintings than an actual expert."

Ron shrugged. "It's gonna be hard, trying to clean up everything... I'm not happy he's here either, but we could probably use the help. We can't just wave our wands and put it all back together—all the spells have to be checked, charms and protections and all that have to be redone." He scratched his head, ruffling his hair. "If there wasn't so much magic that went into keeping this building upright, maybe it wouldn't be such a huge thing... I honestly had no idea some of these charms existed. Like did you know that the walls have anti-graffiti charms in them?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Yes, _Hogwarts, a History_ talks about that. Seriously, if you're going to help with the castle, you have to read up on it, Ron!"

Ron shrank back a bit, the way he did when he was making a choice between being angry and defensive or self-deprecating.

Instead, he said quietly, "Hermione... are you sure you're okay? You seem... off."

She was about to snap at him that _yes_ , she was just _marvelous,_ stuck on this stupid beach, but she stopped.

Why was she being like this, pushing everyone away, lashing out? Sure, she'd been fighting with Malfoy, which was to be expected, but she rarely got this annoyed at her friends, especially for no reason. The only time she'd felt like this was when... she'd had Slytherin's locket.

Oh. Oh dear.

"No," she sighed, shaking her head. "I'm not okay, it's this bloody painting. I'm so... it's making me irritable and... upset."

"Upset, how?"

"I mean, it's not just that I'm stuck here. I've already gotten over that. There's something else. It's like... the painting is making me _feel_ like this."

Ron ran a hand through his hair, catching the gold strands at the base of his temple. "It's making you feel... what exactly?"

"I feel like... I don't know. Like this is the only good place left on Earth. It's like a paradise amidst an apocalypse."

"Whoa," Ron breathed, "that's mad..."

"Yeah. And my magic doesn't work in here. But I've seen wizards in other paintings perform magic... it's almost like magic doesn't _exist_ here."

"How can... how can magic not exist?"

"This world is different," she replied heavily. "There's something different here. Maybe the movement spell is malfunctioning—"

"I mean, it would have to be, considering you got stuck there. There's got to be something wrong with the painting."

Hermione nodded, trying to quell the thumping of her heart, smooth over the prickling feeling like she was in danger. She'd been there for hours, and nothing terrible had happened to her yet, so she knew it was just her imagination, but it was still an uncomfortable feeling that was hard to stomach.

"There is something wrong with it, I just... I'm not sure what it is yet," Hermione murmured, digging her feet into the dune before her. The warm wind blew through her crispy hair, ruffling it like a curtain.

"But you're sure that Malfoy can fix it?"

Hermione shook her head, her eyes prickling briefly; she took a deep breath, getting control of her voice, and said, "I don't know, Ron. He doesn't even remember what went wrong, and he won't let me help him. He... he said that another artist had done this before, and we just had to find the record of it, but I think we should deconstruct the charm, maybe create a countercharm."

Ron nodded slowly. "I mean, both of those things could work..."

Hermione sighed, her expression sour. "Yes, but Malfoy is too lazy to do any actual thinking on this and just wants to find some charm in a book that will reverse it. But with the library still so messy..."

"Yeah, seems like finding a charm would be hard," Ron put forth. "But wouldn't finding the etymology books also be hard? And the charms books?"

Hermione shrugged, ignoring the urge to snap at Ron—no way he almost _agree_ d with Malfoy.

"It seems like the library needs to be back in order first, then," Ron murmured. "Then you can actually search and not just—I don't know, rummage around in the mess."

"But I can't search, because I'm stuck in here," Hermione grumbled. "Malfoy has to do it."

"And he's not one to take direction from one of us, is he..."

Hermione shook her head.

"Do you... do you want me or Neville to help him? I don't know much about paintings, but—"

"No no, Ron, I don't want... everyone fussing over me. The castle has to be done in just a few months and as it is, it's already going to be tight, getting everything back to normal before term starts..."

He nodded, his head lowered, and Hermione felt a pang a sympathy for him, for everyone working on other parts of the castle. In some ways she had lucked out with her task of repairing the library. Even though it was one of the most magic-dense parts of the castle, and re-cataloging and replacing the destroyed books was going to take weeks, she didn't have to worry about stone falling, or discovering bodies, or anything like that. The library had been empty during the battle.

She looked up to discover Ron's eyes drooping, his shoulders slumped as he breathed heavily.

"Ah, Ron... I know you're tired. You don't have to stay all night."

He snapped up, stretching, and replied, "Yeah, but you're going to be here all by yourself—it's going to get boring."

"No, I'm going to get some sleep too," she reasoned. "It's been a long day. But can I see you tomorrow?"

"Of course—I'll stop by before breakfast..."

"You mean, after breakfast," she replied. "I've seen what time you eat breakfast and it's closer to lunch. Besides... Malfoy is usually here in the mornings."

Ron nodded, then looked around awkwardly as he rose to his feet.

"Okay, 'Mione I'll... I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you," she murmured, and as he walked through the empty shelves and around the piles of books toward the exit she tried to keep him in her sights, even as his form was enveloped by darkness.

* * *

 _Author's Note (12/26/18)_ : Heyyyy everyone thank you for the great reviews and support, and Happy New Year!


	4. Cobalt

_"Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters."—Francisco de Goya_

 **Chapter Four: Cobalt**

The next morning Hermione awoke to the sounds of water crashing faithfully down the beach. She opened one eye, peering out over the sand, and for a moment she wasn't sure if she was asleep or not; the waves had been a constant backdrop to her dreams, the soundtrack of her slumber, so much that waking felt like an extension of a dream.

She shuffled her feet slowly, and as the sand spilled over her bare feet she groaned. No, it hadn't been a dream; she was stuck here another day. If anything it was a nightmare.

"Good, you're awake."

Hermione propped herself up on her elbows, sand draining from her hair as she looked up at the suspended portrait.

Malfoy was there just beyond the frame, tinkering with his supplies, squinting against the hot morning sun. Based on the bright highlight against his face it seemed to be early morning, and the team working on the castle facade hadn't made their way around to this side yet. The large chunk out of the corner of the library was likely still there. Malfoy had a folded, somewhat crumpled sheet of parchment sticking out of his front pocket. Hermione could tell from the decorative ink border that the letter had come from the Ministry.

"Made any progress?" Hermione asked, wiping her eye.

"I just got here," Malfoy responded quietly, pulling out a long strip of fabric, stained with fingerprints in cobalt, carmine, and bits of scarlet. Hermione watched as he gathered the strip, his Ministry note drifting from side to side.

"Last night I had a thought," she began.

Draco inhaled deeply, as if preparing for a plunge underwater, and said, "Alright. What now?"

Urgh, it was too early in the day to deal with his unpleasantness. Hermione ran a hand through her hair the best she could, cringing at the matted mass at the back of her head, and sat up.

"Perhaps you could prop up another book for me, so I could help search. If I remember correctly, a few of the portraits in the headmistress's office were charmed before they were fully painted. I'm wondering if—"

"I'm not going in there," Malfoy grumbled. "And if you think I'm going to turn pages for you, forget it. I have to make progress on the collection today. I'll look into the charm at lunch."

"Wha—you can't just—"

"I _can_ just," he retorted. "I'm not in the mood right now, I'll get to it in a few hours."

Hermione exhaled angrily. "Look, I don't want to whine but being in here is awful—"

"And you've got ages to sort yourself out. I've got three months to refurbish, clean, charm, and hang more than five hundred paintings. You tell me what's more daunting."

Hermione sputtered uselessly, her heart falling as she watched him attach the cloth band to the painting next to hers, so he had a place to rest his arm while he cleaned. She weighed a few potential retorts in her mind, but knew that no matter what she said, he would inevitably either ignore her or continue to be a prick. She couldn't appeal to any sympathy with him, couldn't threaten him with retaliation, and certainly didn't have any leverage in her current state without the help of someone from the outside. Her only hope now was that she could find some logic that benefited him, insomuch as he would do something that seemed to be easy, but would make a world of difference for her.

"I heard you didn't pass some of your N.E.W.T.s," she began.

He didn't look up, just continued strapping the painting, looping the band around the back of the shelf it was resting against.

Hermione sat up straighter. "And a few of us didn't take our N.E.W.T.s at all. That's why we're here. But trying to prep... well, everyone else had the entire year to learn what they needed. We only have a few months."

Malfoy said nothing, just slowly squeezed out daps of color onto his palette.

"Look, the library needs to be done first, and as I was tasked with cleaning it—and I'm currently unable to do so—it seems more important that it is restored so everyone can study."

"Well _you_ aren't facing Azkaban if you fail to restore the library," Draco retorted.

"Yes, but I thought you had to pass your N.E.W.T.s as part of your deal."

Draco sighed through his nostrils, shoving a tube of paint forcefully back into the case next to him. Hermione vaguely felt as though she'd overstepped, mentioning his legal punishment, but she really needed to find some leverage in this situation to regain some control.

"Besides, it will help us with figuring out—"

"What do _you_ know about the deal?" Malfoy snapped. "Did Potter come and spill all the details to you? Oh, you lot must've had a self-righteous little laugh over that—"

Hermione furrowed her brows. "No, Harry didn't—"

"Well you guys can laugh it up, I don't care—"

"No one is _laughing_ , Malfoy," Hermione replied harshly. "Haven't you noticed?"

Draco met her eyes, and Hermione lost herself a little as she reminded them both of what they had survived, what they had lived through.

There was so much there, so much that had happened to both of them on the fringes of their leaders. They'd both been swept up in the tide of destruction that closely followed Harry and Voldemort. That was something that Malfoy knew about this war more than a lot of the other students: that in the end, it hadn't been about believing anymore. It had been about surviving.

After a minute, Draco broke the moment by looking away. "I'm not here out of some... _ploy_ by the Ministry to make me graduate."

Hermione leaned back. "I didn't say that," she replied.

"The Minister thinks that Azkaban would be too soft a punishment for me," he put forth quietly, his voice colored with distaste. "He wants me to help rebuild the school."

"Instead of shipping you off to rot forever without knowing what you've done," Hermione finished.

He didn't respond to this, just silently pinched the tube he was holding, watching it depress under his fingers.

"You could prove them wrong, you know," Hermione murmured. "Show them that you deserve to be free."

He muttered something under his breath that she didn't catch, but it sounded enough like a dismissal that she shrugged and leaned back on the sand, picking up the book next to her and flipping through it aimlessly.

* * *

Draco leaned the painting he'd just finished cleaning—a regal looking scene of an alchemist entertaining a court—against the stack of 'done' paintings. The alchemist within hadn't even said anything to Draco, and just continued making it rain gold dust for the duke and duchess.

Whenever he actually worked on the collection, Draco could feel the disapproval of the painted figures, all murmuring and watching him warily. More than one had grumbled backhanded comments at him about his treatment of the Gryffindor on the beach, and all he could do was stiffly wipe away the soot and dust with his cloth and ignore them.

The Wizengamot had delivered the official terms for his service, and it was worse to see them on paper, spelled out in legal jargon, than it had been to hear them in person. The reminder was doing nothing for his temper. And now he not only had to refurbish Hogwarts' art, but also had to help with other restoration efforts. The teachers, staff, and other volunteers were basically given a free pass to boss him around until the start of term. Draco assumed that the teachers already knew this, but he didn't want to advertise that he was at the whims of whoever wanted to tell him what to do. No doubt some of his former classmates would use the opportunity to make him clean the toilets with a toothbrush, or something equally as absurd.

The thing with Granger wasn't mentioned in the letter, so it was likely that McGonagall hadn't told them yet. Draco cringed involuntarily. Would they throw him away if they found out? His only hope for McGonagall _not_ telling the Wizengamot what he'd done was either rectifying the situation, or at least making it look like he was trying to.

In other words, he really needed to stop dancing around Granger's portrait and start learning the proportions of the Gryffindor's form so he could replicate it.

Draco surveyed the mess of supplies near him, all spread out in a fan around where he was squatting. Perhaps he needed to invest in finding a suitable chair and table, so he wasn't hunching over so much while he was drawing. The paintings were too unwieldy to prop up on a desk—most of them were too big even for an easel—and so the desk was mostly necessary for placing books and sketching.

Draco took a few distracted minutes to move a table near his corner of the library, shuffling the paintings so they were against the wall. The occupants teetered in their scenes, muttering disapprovals. The research books he'd already gone through made their way back to the art history shelves; some of them even tried to hover and put themselves away, but the magic wasn't strong enough, and the old tomes just hovered confusedly in the air. The rest of the art history and charms books Draco needed were stacked up on the table, forming their own towers. He tried to sort them by endeavor— _Still Life and Portraiture_ went to the charm pile, while _Great Aesthetic Alchemists_ went to the history pile.

This done, Draco scooted the chair into the table and dusted the seat, making it ready for himself later in the day. He spent a few minutes indecisively surveying the change, scooting stacks of paintings this way and that, trying to make more room.

Finally he dropped to the floor, taking up his parchment and charcoals. Reluctantly, Draco took a deep breath and looked up at his beach landscape.

With Granger's eyes on her sandy book—how many times must she have read it already?—she wasn't paying attention to him, just quietly reading. It was almost comical, the fact that she was leaning against her leg, chin in her hand, eyebrows furrowed; it was precisely what he would have chosen for her pose, and she had emulated it without knowing. Draco found himself smirking in amusement.

His eyes traced the line of her jaw; given the opportunity to look at her through the unjudgemental, careful eyes of honest replication, he noticed the deep shadow between her jawbone and connecting neck, the descending curve of her jawline, the sharp upturn of her cheek. The hand that held her chin had long fingers, almost hyperextended outward, tipped in nails that looked long enough to leave a decent scratch.

Draco narrowed his eyes; was it a trick of his painting, that her features seemed so pronounced, or was it an accurate assessment? His eye was trained to remove the trappings of the object itself and just observe the color, the line, and the contrast between its visual shapes, and so he was able to notice not only detail, but form. Lemons on a lemon tree became no more than plump clashes of yellows and greens. Strands of wheat became long, carmine strokes. And a hand holding a chin became curves of brown. But it was unclear if what he saw now was true, was real, or was a trick of perspective.

Despite his urge to get the portrait over with so he could go back to his real task for the next few months, some creative part of his soul perked up. No matter the subject, painting was something that soothed his mind. He could be silent for hours, not needing to craft elaborate social strategies or maintain dominance over his house. No, when he painted it was just him and the world he was creating. It came down to how he layed the strokes, the colors he mixed, the sleight of hand that transformed a blob of crimson into a ruby, or a dash of ivory into the shine on the edge of a sword. It was tedious and required methodical concentration that spanned the range of minute details to overarching composition. He had to think small and big at the same time. While he mixed the colors of a sky, he had to remix the colors of the lake reflecting it. Nothing existed on its own in a painting.

By compartmentalizing his thoughts, he could easily slip into that focused state, where he could be creative and discerning. He needed to collect himself, think of his subject not as Granger, but as a model, a person whose form and color needed to be translated on a flat surface.

Because if he didn't do that, the portrait would become everything Draco disliked about Granger, amplified through the lens of his own limited knowledge of who she was outside of that.

Portrait painting was an intimate process. It required hours of staring at a subject, yes, but it also required knowing them, understanding them, determining what made them tick. Practically speaking, when an artist set the brush to canvas they were capturing a moment in time, but that moment needed to transcend all others. It had to be the essence of who a person was, their quintessential state. Otherwise the artist only captured one facet of their subject, and had ultimately failed to immortalize them once the enchantment was in place.

But Draco wasn't blind; he'd seen Hermione interact with her friends, her other classmates, or Weasley's family. She was always laughing and smiling around them, or raising her eyebrow in that holier-than-thou way, but with a note of affection. The way people responded to her was fascinating. Based on what he knew of Potter and Weasley, Draco could always tell when she was mad at them. They were by her side, eyes all droopy, begging to get acknowledged. Even the teachers were usually gracious to her, more so than the other students. Draco vaguely knew, somewhere deep down, that the way he saw her wasn't the way everyone else did.

And it wasn't just because he didn't like her; it was because he'd truly seen her like no one else had—not in school, but... in his home.

The way she furrowed her brow when she was concentrating was not unlike the way she did when she was in pain.

He'd seen her face at its worst: mouth wide and teeth bared as she screamed, eyes squeezed shut. With a Cruciatus Curse ripping through her body, she couldn't remember to look disgusted and holier-than-thou. There was nothing but that searing pain rippling through her flesh, tearing her sinews apart from her bones, boiling her nerves.

Oh yes, he remembered what a Cruciatus felt like, and despite vague feelings of dislike and annoyance towards the Gryffindor he wouldn't wish that fate on her. On anyone.

There were few things as truly intimate as witnessing someone in earth-shattering pain. With nothing but vowels torn from their mouth, their lips peeled back and eyes rolling, it was a nightmare to see first-hand. It removed all pretense and facade of humanity, of socialization, of anything prim or proper, and showcased the animalistic core of the person: their primal desire to live. He knew that pain because he'd lived it, watched other people live it; he'd seen many people in that state over the past few months. Daily entertainment in the depths of his home had involved the torture and brutal mutilation of several people, including Granger, Mr. Olivander, and even his old Muggle Studies teacher, Professor Babbage. Discovering that primal side of those people had fundamentally changed something in him. All of his games of pride and oneupmanship ceased to matter when there was such agony before him. Seeing all those layers stripped away to reveal the core, earthy human element was celestial in its purity.

That essence was something Draco believed he could genuinely capture in Granger. He'd seen her like that, as a human begging for life, her mortal body exploding with the desire to live. Even as he was sketching her, he could already see the finished piece in his mind's eye: Granger sitting at a desk, eyebrows furrowed as though she was deep in thought, but there would be a quivering vulnerability to her eyes.

Draco sighed, disgust working its way up his throat. These were not things he ever wanted to know about her. These were things that should never be shared between humans, let alone enemies. And he resented her for that knowledge, resented her because it made him uncomfortable. He'd done what he could to spare her and the others, out of a reluctance to see them die, sure, but mostly to get them the hell out of his house and have the decency to die somewhere else. Or better yet, fix the whole mess like they were always doing.

And thank Merlin for that half-cocked decision to feign ignorance and buy the Gryffindors some time; as a result Potter had escaped, turned around, and shattered The Dark Lord's whole world. Draco hadn't seen it this way until Potter had brought it up during his hearing, and there was something warm and satisfying about contributing to the winning side.

Potter had said that Draco's contribution had been "crucial." Crucial. How ironic. He'd also been crucial in Hogwarts' downfall. How could he have been both?

Draco sighed, beginning to replicate the Gryffindor's pose on paper. It took shape slowly, just outlines and hints of deep shadows. He found himself drawing the charcoal stick over the crease between her eyebrows for longer than he needed to. His creative determination was already at war with his own negative bias. He sketched her nose all pointed and marled only to look up and see it was straight, with delicate curves down to the clefts of her cheeks. He sketched naught but two descending lines for her mouth, only to look up and erase these; her lips were too plump to get away with that, even when they were pursed.

Over the course of sketching and re-sketching, her form changed dramatically. Every time Draco looked at her it felt like the first time he was really seeing her as the human she was, human with a certain determination to her brow, sandy waves blowing in the wind that looked wilder than the fluffy mess she was usually sporting. After a time it seemed like he was finally starting to get it right, but with every new sketch her head descended more and more, her eyes were more and more distant, and that crease deepened. Comparing one drawing to the next, they were starting to look like different people. Were they different sides of her, or were they just amateur replications? Draco didn't know, and so he had to assume the latter, and be angry at himself for not being able to get it right.

It wasn't just about fixing this situation, no. This was a test of skill. He'd never painted a portrait before, but he'd read all about them and knew that it was the highest form of wizarding art. Scenes of landscapes were the easiest, as the artist needed to only have a sense of place. Following that, allegorical or symbolic paintings were next; if the subject was fictional, or historical, it hardly mattered if the artist knew who the individual was as a person. They were one-dimensional figures, created to be representations of ideas, not representations of themselves.

Portraits had to be accurate. As Draco filled in his canvas with the desk and the quill, and an amorphous shape that would eventually become the swotty Gryffindor, he held his portrayal in his mind. The more he stared at her, sketched her on parchment, the clearer his vision became. He'd show her hair tied back, the way she tied it in Potions class. Only three out of the four moles under her jaw would be visible, but even just knowing there were four was essential for when the painting moved. She'd twirl the quill occasionally, the way she did when she was reading and preparing to jot down a note.

The actual breadth of knowledge he had about her, as it turned out, was more substantial than he'd initially realized. After the first few days he found himself drawing from memory; she'd always twirled her wand a bit when she was finding her grip, or shook her hair out of her face before she delivered an answer to a teacher.

And as for her furrowed brow and her eyes, well, he remembered with some shame the look she gave him while his aunt had pressed her crooked wand to her throat. Eyes glossy, staring, questioning, boring into him, challenging him to be better.

He couldn't quite get them right on paper. It was the color; in black charcoal, her eyes were little more than dots and shapes. On the canvas, they could span a whole universe of color.

But regardless, he was determined not to think of them, and focused instead on her form, putting off that inevitable examination that really was the key to a successful portrait... as the eyes were windows into the soul.

* * *

Hermione was hopelessly bored; as a person who liked to stay busy, always getting ahead of future work and making progress on anything she could, being trapped on the beach was torture. This place was hellishly stagnant, with the unchanging sand, steady waves, and forever descending sunset that never dipped below the horizon. Hermione was itching to work on something, do something productive, and all she could manage was to read her outdated edition of _A History of Magic_ for the fourth time and glance over her shoulder every once in a while.

Besides the odd mention here or there of a famous portrait or painting that started a war, evangelized an idea, or brought a community together, there was a small section exclusively about art near the beginning of the book. It insisted on the importance of creative practices to wizard history, but it didn't seem to contain any specific information that would be useful to her. She could almost repeat it from memory, she'd read it so many times.

' _Wizard art has been instrumental in the immortalization of times long forgotten. Through the hand of artists from antiquity to the modern age, from tapestries and frescos to the prints and photographs of the last century, we've been able to preserve the legacy of our people and understand the wizard condition through the ages. The creative spirit of witches and wizards all over the world has given us the most extraordinary sights and experiences ever beheld, and continues to delight and inspire us to this day. But beyond this, it offers a lens to view our greatest achievements and our greatest tragedies, our most prized victories and most shameful losses. Historians rely not only on the accounts of animated portraits, but also the very lay of a brush to canvas as a measure of the cultural zeitgeist.'_

Hermione rolled her eyes at the writing style; it had amused her when she was young, but compared to the austere and clinical writings of other historical authors, Hermione found Bathilda Bagshot's work to be a little fluffy. Accurate, but fluffy. She could read _A History of Magic_ like a fiction book.

It even contained a short passage about using the charm:

 _'To activate a piece of art, particularly a portrait or a scene of wizards, the Animated Art Charm must be used. As the incantation is spoken, one must hold the vision of their scene in their mind, clearly, to make it real. Afterwards, the figures within will spring to motion, animated with the vision of their master._ '

It said basically what _A Painter's Guide to Enchantment_ had said, just in a less long-winded and more flowery way.

Rereading the book took her mind off of her situation for the most part, but she found her mind drifting more than once, latching onto strange ideas of her disappearing, or growing old here and dying on the sand, or drowning in the warm sea water.

When she looked up around midday, she was startled to see Malfoy staring right at her, his hand moving back and forth across a sheet of parchment.

She looked left and right, as though she would see someone else next to her that he was staring at.

"Stop moving," he murmured distractedly. His drawing arm continued sweeping in short strokes.

Hermione grasped the edge of her skirt, her thumb pressing into the wooly fabric. "What are you doing?" she asked uncertainly.

"A study," he replied, his lips barely moving.

"A what?"

"You don't think artists just sit down at their canvases and pump out a masterpiece, do you?" Draco shook his head, looking away for a moment to examine his drawing. "You have to practice first, get the proportions right."

"Oh," Hermione murmured. She shuffled her limbs awkwardly, trying to remember how she was sitting before. "Does it have to be—"

" _Yes,_ " Draco said tightly, "all of these things matter with charmed paintings Granger. You don't want to deal with no gravity, or a chair the size of a knut. I told you that painting a portrait was quite an undertaking."

"Okay." Hermione reshuffled her limbs, leaning back on her leg and propping up her book.

"It's too late, you ruined it," he grumbled.

Hermione sighed angrily, setting the old history book aside carefully as she crossed her legs. "I have some photos you can use instead. If you ask Hannah or Padma, they can go into the girls' dorms in Hufflepuff and—"

"Not going to happen," Draco dismissed. "A photo would move more than you."

"You can charm it to stop, or try talking to it," Hermione replied, chin lifted. "Or use _immobulus_ —"

"Doesn't matter, I'm done for now," Draco muttered. He brushed the sketches aside and without so much as glancing at the spine he pulled the book next to him into his lap.

"What are you reading?"

He didn't answer, just flipped the old pages, eyes darting around the text.

"If you're still reading those history books, you might as well stop, because I'm thinking that—"

"Do you have to do that?" he snapped.

Hermione crossed her arms. "Do what?"

He sighed, turning a page. "Talk to me like I don't know what I'm doing."

Hermione watched him through narrowed eyes. "Well if you told me what you're doing, maybe I could help you."

"What can _you_ do?" he spat angrily, turning pages, and quietly followed, "Believe it or not, you don't have a patent on brains, Granger."

Hermione huffed in annoyance, that dark sense of ire burning her heart. It hurt more because she knew she was being petty, or too much, but she really could do little to control it; the irritation she felt towards him was instantly ignited whenever he said or did anything. His very _breath_ annoyed her.

"You're just picking a fight with me because you're bored and none of your cronies are here," she muttered.

"And what does that say about you?"

"Oh, why don't you just—!"

"Will you two stop it?!" a shrill voice suddenly broke through.

Hermione jumped, and Draco whipped around; near him was a tall painting of a woman sitting at a vanity, her chair deeply ornate. He squinted at the plaque pinned to her frame— _'La Duchesse de Gaulle_ '. A brief glance at the hand of the artist—all fluffy strokes and glittering highlights—told him it was painted in the mid-eighteenth century French style, likely by a court painter.

"We've been listening to you fight for days!" she scolded. "I don't know about you, but some of us like some quiet!"

"It's not her, madame," Sir Galahad put forth. He shifted on his saddle, his chimera pawing the ground, pulling up dirt. "She wasn't the one throwing charms around."

"Well they're both still going on like yapping away is all they know how to do!"

"Sorry," Hermione mumbled, sitting back on the beach and looking away determinedly.

The duchess huffed, tittering about young people and their lack of decency and general rottenness, and Draco gave her one solid glare before turning back towards his book.

Not knowing what to do with herself, Hermione stood, teetering on the sand, and marched up the hill, her arms swinging. Once she was safely out of view of the frame, she sat in the tall grass, welcoming the dry blades against her face, coddling her as the wind blew.

She exhaled through her nostrils, indulging in thoughts of how hopelessly insufferable Malfoy was and how good it might feel to tear him down a notch or two. The more she thought of him however, the angrier she got, and after a while she felt so tense that all she could do was lie back on the grass and stare up at the sky.

She sighed, focusing on her breath, trying to pull her thoughts from the depths of anger back to an even, level space, a space where her brain was the champion of everything she did. With each breath, it became clearer: emotion was a complex beast, but one that could be untangled and studied from above. She would need to do just that in order to get through this hardship.

She knew better than this, better than to stoop to his level, so why did she insist on fighting with him? Blaming Malfoy was easy and satisfying, but the more she thought about it the more ashamed she felt of herself, for letting them get so far off track. Everything the former Slytherin said made her blood boil, and with her already feeling so anxious it was easy to lash out.

She lay completely still, letting the noise of the waves engulf her senses and drown out every other sound. With her gaze upward, all she saw was deep scarlet with touches of lilac, slowly moving across the sky like interstellar lava.

When Hermione eventually got up and came back over the hill, she looked at the suspended frame to see Malfoy arguing with a painting near hers; she could only make out a corner of it, but based on the teacup Maltese puppy running around and the basket of fine cloth she could see, it was likely the painting of Sir Hamilton, a Hogwarts benefactor from the fifteenth century.

"Oh, yeah, 'repaired it', did you?" the old sir was saying. "Then how come the bread feels like wood?"

The man bent and theatrically smacked the bread on his table, which made a hard, hollow sound.

"Well, I'm—you're lucky you got any bread at all!" Draco retorted, glaring at the old wizard.

Sir Hamilton scoffed, pulling his ruffles out haughtily. "You're lucky they didn't throw you in a cell, young man. Oh yes—I heard all about what you did."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Malfoy hissed, shoving aside his supplies and picking up the book next to him— _Aesthetic Enchantments of Antiquity_.

Hermione slid down the luminescent beach, stepping through sand patterns she'd made, and came to the edge of the shore. She sat on the sand, holding her knees.

Malfoy said nothing, just flipped a page and started reading.

"Look... Malfoy," she began, "I don't want us to argue about this stuff."

He didn't say anything, but he did sit up a little straighter, his knees propping the covers of the book.

"This situation is just... it's hard."

He looked up at her, his brows descending, eyes fierce. "It wouldn't be so hard if you would just be quiet," he scathed.

Hermione looked into his eyes, at the anger there, and like a wave she felt her irritation curl and rush through her, wanting to claim her... but the more she looked, the less angry he seemed and the more... desperate.

The truth was, this wasn't a good situation for either of them. She'd definitely gotten the brunt of this, but if Draco didn't fix it then he was going to Azkaban, there was no question. And then it would be a long wait while McGonagall figured out who _could_ fix it.

"I... I feel all... messed up," Hermione finally admitted. "I... I think it's your painting. I feel... so _trapped_..."

Draco looked away, playing off her comment. "Well, why don't you just take a nap or something."

Hermione sighed and lied back on the sand, trying to isolate the sound of the waves, but all she could hear now was the breathing from another world.

* * *

The hours were long and fruitless. Hermione had never spent so much time doing so little. After the third day, she started inventing little games to keep her mind busy. On the beach there were exactly twenty-seven shells. They were all clamshells except for one twisting snail shell. Two of them were shiny on the inside, four of them were broken. She looked for the missing pieces. Maybe she could make a necklace, or an abacus. If she twisted the dry grasses, she could fashion some netting.

Up in the sky, there were other suites of games. Could she spot the same cloud traversing the sky at different points in the day, or were the clouds all different? Sometimes if she stared long enough, the sun almost touched the horizon. The sun was red, luminous like the hot underside of a cauldron. If she could fly, was there an expanse of space beyond the clouds? If she travelled far enough, would she discover another planet? There were three stars just visible through the sunset, though the moon was nowhere to be found. In this world did the moon not exist? Maybe that's why the tide never changed...

When Malfoy wasn't there, she could talk to the other paintings; the only ones she could see were the painting of the knight, just visible around Malfoy's table, the large painting with the one-eyed cherub, and the corner of another painting she suspected was the ornery duchess in the chair. Unfortunately the figures could barely hold a conversation; she could ask them questions about art and about the history of the paintings in the castle, but it didn't take long for her to hit a wall with them. Despite her condition, somehow transported into the world of this painting, it was true what she'd read about enchanted portraits: they weren't alive. They could have a chat, and respond to stimuli, and vaguely knew what they were, but beyond that they couldn't give her any insight into what was happening. They mostly went about their own way, forever repeating the same mannerisms, with no recognition or comprehension of her situation.

Hermione started to find herself feeling hungry, but she knew it was only to give herself something to concentrate on. When she felt like eating she started chewing the collar of her shirt, something she would never do normally. Other times she made patterns in the sand with her nails. Sometimes they were just lines, sometimes primitive depictions of flowers or animals. Sometimes she practiced arithmancy equations, drawing them in with her fingers. Sometimes she brought the water from the shore to destroy what she'd made, then transformed lumps of sand into a small replication of Hogwarts.

Ron's visits helped tremendously, and she eagerly looked forward to seeing him grow larger in the frame until he was sitting in front of her. Talking to him was an easy distraction, and though he wasn't always very talkative, even sitting with him in silence was somewhat soothing.

Unfortunately, the longer she spent on the beach, the harder it was getting for her to reign in the impulse to snap at Ron, or keep her mind from drifting to Malfoy and how much he angered her.

Malfoy was either hopelessly insufferable or eerily quiet, and it never seemed apparent which state he was in. Whenever she talked to him he either ignored her or shot back with derisive, combative and generally unhelpful commentary that didn't really move them forward. By the end of the week Hermione found herself wanting to close her hands around his neck more than once.

At the very least the portrait seemed to be coming along. It seemed strangely perverse, the fact that Malfoy had been sketching her over and over to get the proportions right; she hardly could think that he would truly know what she looked like. Even when he was looking right into her eyes it felt like he wasn't really seeing her, that he was looking through her, or better yet was staring at some sort of wall in front of her that read 'Gryffindor, mudblood, swotty bint.' From the way he spoke to her, she couldn't know any different.

The actual portrait did indeed contain the makings of a desk, a quill, and a chair, though all were rudimentary and dull. Her own form took shape slowly, visible from the waist up, and currently was a blob of deep brown with ochre highlights. Malfoy called it an "underpainting," which seemed straightforward enough of a term to tell her that there would be more paint going on top of it.

She'd initially been curious about his process; she'd never seen any artist work on an oil painting, or repair one for that matter, and there was much to learn. His movements were practiced, every stroke intentioned. Sure, there were moments when he would just stare, brows furrowed and head cocked to the side, but eventually he would touch paint to canvas once more.

It was terrifying, being on the beach; there was an expectation of destruction, world-altering and life-snuffing. The paranoia kept her awake for hours, staring at that sunset that never faded to black, the water that never quieted. The sand seemed even more luminous when she was trying to urge herself asleep, and when she closed her eyes she could almost see it breaking through.

It was like being on a distant unknown planet, with no sentient life to greet, no concept of time, and no promise of release.

By Friday morning Hermione was reaching the bottom of her wit. She'd spent the entire night trying to figure out what time it was, staring into the suspended painting of the Hogwarts library as the moonlight caught the edges of the mess. By the time the library glowed blue in the early hours she'd landed on an answer—maybe five o'clock?

Malfoy came in sometime later—late enough for the sun to be hot and bright into the room. Hermione watched him move around, shifting canvasses from one leaning perch to another.

"Going to work on the portrait?" she asked.

He nodded mutely; Hermione had discovered that he didn't really like to talk in the mornings. He usually gave her clipped, one-word answers, and if she needled him even a little he snapped at her, and they'd have a row. She knew that after spending the entire night staring at the sunset, drifting in and out of sleep, she was starved for any kind of interaction, and so she usually came on a little stronger than she intended to.

Her exhaustion was currently winning over any sense of tact however, and so as Draco moved around Hermione continued watching him, grasping the frame like a prisoner holding bars.

"Please tell me you're going to finish it soon," she said, clenching the gilded frame. " _Please_."

Draco stopped what he was doing and turned to her, his ambitious mind picking up on this display of weakness immediately. In any other circumstance he would use this weakness to get what he wanted, but a sense of unease prickled him. Instead, he said, "It's a process. It's not going to be done for at least for a few weeks."

Hermione's stomach clenched. "A few weeks?" she breathed.

Draco sighed. "Yeah, Granger, it's not like a landscape. Landscapes are much easier. If you know what the place smells like, looks like, what the wind feels like, it's all you need. Forming a mental picture of it is easier. But with a person..." he trailed off, reminded once again of the fact that he needed to _know_ her for this to be successful.

"I—I can't do this for weeks," Hermione said hollowly, stepping back and shaking her head from side to side. "I need to get out of here, I feel like I'm going mad."

Draco watched her, his attention suddenly captured as she rubbed her eyes. She seemed exhausted and anxious, and considering the fact that she'd been on the beach for a few days now she should have gotten used to it. But she seemed just as anxious as when she was first shouting at him. In fact, as the days went on he found her form becoming more slouched, more amorphous, and while initially he'd been frustrated with himself—was he getting worse at drawing?—he now understood that it wasn't him. It was her.

"Like you're going mad?" he repeated.

She nodded, eyes squeezed shut, still rubbing her face. "I'm telling you, this painting is affecting my mood. I'm trying to stay calm but... the painting isn't _letting_ me."

"You speak as if it has some kind of... control over you," Draco murmured.

"I don't know what else to think, Malfoy. Every time I feel myself relaxing, my skin suddenly crawls, like I'm about to be struck by lightning or fall off a cliff or something. I've been tensed for days now, my jaw is tired from all the clenching and—oh god, I just want this to be _over_." Her voice broke, and she buried her face in her sleeve, clearly to hide any potential tears from him.

For the first time since this all happened Draco was truly afraid for her, afraid that even though he was confident they would be able to get her out, that when she came out she may not be the same person. Something about his painting was tormenting her, and for someone who didn't complain about almost anything it was unsettling to see her so strung out.

Draco stood, looking around at the stacks of canvases leaning around him. The original idea of painting her portrait now seemed like a complete and utter waste of time, time that was clearly running out.

Draco thought carefully. The purpose of moving her to another painting was so she could use magic. And while painting a portrait from scratch with exactly the parameters they needed was the best option, there was no reason why they couldn't try to get her into a different painting, one that was more stable than the landscape. Draco grounded his feet.

"Paintings!" he called sternly.

Hermione looked up, a bemused annoyance breaking through her fear. No one would listen, being addressed like that—

"Paintings, how do you visit each other? And can you do that now?"

"No," a muffled voice replied, somewhere in the back of the leaning stack of gilded frames. "I can't see anything."

"We're too damaged," another voice replied, high and flute-like; it was the cherub in the painting in the corner. His eye was still burned off, so he looked more like a disused children's doll than an innocent spirit.

"Too damaged?" Draco questioned. "But your spells are working fine—"

"You try walking around in here!" a shrill voice sounded; no doubt it was the duchess in the chair again.

"I've seen painted figures roam around," Hermione put forth, wiping her eyes. "I know it's possible. How can you do it? Is it something about the castle? Is it a spell?"

"I can visit my other portrait in my family's home," the wizard towards the back murmured, his pointed hat nearly twice as tall as his head.

"But I'm not like you," Hermione said sadly. "I'm a real person, I'm not a figure painted by hand. We tried..." she trailed off, her brow furrowing.

"Well, the portrait the boy's painting is sloppy. I can already tell, it's not going to be a true likeness at all," the ornery duchess said.

"Malfoy... try hanging the painting," Hermione said suddenly.

He looked over at her; she was staring at him directly, her sandy face set with determination.

"I'm not hanging—"

"Stop being a prick and hear me out! The paintings in the castle can walk in and out of their neighbor's paintings, correct? It must be something about... being close to each other."

"You're close to hundreds of paintings now," Malfoy pointed out, gesturing. "So go ahead. Walk between them."

"I can't, they aren't... there's something wrong. They need to be on the same plane."

Draco shook his head, looking at the countless frames in front of him.

"She's probably right, you know," the young knight behind them said. "I used to visit Adelaide a few paintings down, but when her frame fell... I couldn't get to her." The knight shook his head, running a hand through his hair, his eyes distant.

Draco stared blankly, rubbing his hands together; a bit of cobalt paint was smeared between them.

"It's worth a try, Malfoy, come on. If I'm wrong we're no better or worse off."

"Alright," he said finally, cracking his knuckles and stretching his fingers outward. "But I'm hanging it in here."

"Try near where the restricted section was; the walls there were pretty solid."

"And what painting would you travel to?" he asked.

Hermione thought, peering through the frame at the paintings behind him. There was an empty room, windows opening to a landscape of rolling Greek hills and valleys, dotted with squat white buildings; a simple, dark painting that clearly used to be a portrait; a garden, with a glittering fountain in the center and a large cheetah swishing its tail, its head resting on the cobblestone ground.

"I'll try the empty portrait," she said. "Shouldn't be too hard to lift since it's pretty small."

"Alright." Draco carefully stored his painting supplies and took out his wand. The small, empty portrait seemed easy to lift, so he picked this up by hand and walked it to the back wall, hanging it over an exposed brick of stone.

That finished, he walked back, coming to stand in front of her painting.

"Ready?" he asked, raising his wand.

Hermione stepped further back on the beach, steadying her legs and nodding.

" _Wingardium leviosa._ "

The loose sand shifted suddenly, and Hermione grounded her stance as the waves down the beach started to crash.

"Hurry up!" she called over the noise.

Draco quickly maneuvered between the piles of books, raising the painting above them.

When he finally reached the back wall, Hermione was kneeling in wet sand as the water pulled back under her knees.

"Malfoy!" she said sternly.

"I'm looking for a hook!" he replied angrily.

He finally spotted a bit of jutting iron and quickly maneuvered the painting over it. It sat against the wall heavily, and Hermione wobbled in her kneeling position as the painting settled.

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief as the tide rolled back, and she grasped her skirt, squeezing the seawater out of it.

"Always a pleasure," she grumbled, grateful that it was at least warm and the heat and light breeze would dry her off pretty quickly.

Draco walked back between the shelves, squeezing around the jutting frame corners. He turned to face the two hanging pieces of art, positioned slightly above his head on the wall.

"Alright. Walk to the end of the painting," he commanded.

Hermione looked to her right, at the eerie, black space she had been so careful to avoid touching before. It did seem slightly different, but she couldn't tell if that was her mind playing tricks on her or not.

She stood, brushing wild tendrils back from her face, and started carefully towards the void, her trainers squishing in the sand.

"What happens if I disappear?" she asked quietly, stopping just before the edge of the sand splayed over the black. Paranoia swirled around her, lifting the hairs on her arms.

"You won't disappear. We'll just have to find you," Draco said seriously.

Hermione stared at the void, quiet and consuming. She could hear nothing from the other side, no indication that stepping over wouldn't make her fall forever, or die instantly, or make her foot disappear. She sniffed the air, but all she could smell was the vague fishiness from the seawater behind her.

She reached forward, but there was nothing to touch. The black swirled lightly.

Finally, she took a breath, held it, and walked forward.

The air shifted suddenly, and she was chilled as she approached what appeared to be a simple wood table. The darkness lifted to muted browns and grays of a small room sandwiched by two walls, front and back, and that familiar black void on the sides. The chair and table legs were perched over darkness, but as she stepped the ground was solid like hardwood, creaking and bending lightly under her shoes. There was another frame suspended in front of the table—the same frame she'd seen surrounding this painting.

"That's _amazing_ ," Draco said suddenly.

Hermione looked through the frame at Draco's interested face as he rubbed his chin, unknowingly smearing a bit of cobalt paint over his stubble.

"Thank god," Hermione sighed heavily, leaning on the table. "I can't believe that worked."

This room was chilly, as though it was in a basement somewhere, but she was inundated with a sense of calm serenity. Her muscles relaxed slowly; after days of being so tense it was drugging, being able to relax. She closed her eyes, breathing in and out.

"What's happening?" Draco asked, his face getting larger in the bottom of the frame as he stared up at her.

"I think... the painting is affecting my mood again," she murmured. "This one is a lot calmer. And... cold."

"Cold?"

Hermione nodded, rubbing her arms. Her cardigan was hardly a defense against this temperature, and her sopping wet skirt felt like ice against her bare legs. She estimated that she could spend no more than a few hours in here before it became unbearable.

"Yeah. It feels like... the potions dungeon in the winter."

"Oh," Draco said, understanding. "Like when we had to light the cauldrons at the start of class, just to keep warm."

Hermione nodded, a smile surfacing. "Yeah, Snape _hated_ that. He made us snuff them if he noticed. I used to do an illusion charm on mine."

They fell into silence, Hermione rubbing her arms as she walked around the simple wood table and sat carefully in the chair. School seemed like such a faraway dream. Even though her memories of potions class were mostly of her rescuing Ron or Neville from terrible mistakes, or getting into tiffs with the Slytherins, she'd take the simplicity of those days over anything.

Struck with inspiration, Hermione took out her wand. She'd never understood how much she relied on her wand until she couldn't use it; she was constantly practicing spells, or performing magic to provide even basic services. Even a few days without it turned her into a mess; she hadn't cleaned her clothes, or done her teeth, or even recited some defensive spell flows.

Hermione touched the wand to her skirt and said, " _Scourgify_."

It was with relief that Hermione felt the spell activate, the flow of energy through her body, down her arm, and out the tip of the wand; the patch of sandy wool she was pointing at sizzled for a moment like hot oil, but then was still, pristine and soft to the touch. Her body proprioception was claiming the wand once more, where it felt like an extension of her. It was finally a part of her again.

"Magic seems to be working," she breathed, raising the wand and inspecting the tip.

"Perfect," Draco put forth, his usually sour expression lifted. "Now try to apparate."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at the suspended scene of the Hogwarts library, concentrating on the spot just behind Malfoy, between his stack of art history books and the stack of magizoology journals. Right there, on the worn decorative rug, is where she wanted to be.

She closed her eyes and let her determination to reach that place consume her, and for a breath she waited for that familiar nauseating feeling of being squeezed through a tube.

But nothing was happening; she knew where she wanted to go, but she didn't quite know how to get there directionally, even through space. Her destination wasn't actually in front of her, though visually it seemed that way.

Hermione relaxed, a disappointed sigh leaving her lips. "I can't apparate... I can't..."

"The Anti-Apparition hexes should be down," Draco murmured. "People are apparating all over the castle..."

"I think it's because my body doesn't know where it is. Doesn't know where I am."

Draco ran a hand through his hair. "So you aren't actually... there, in front of me."

"No—I mean yes, I am, but the space is different. I'm in... in a different space..." Fear seized her heart for a moment, that sense of weightless terror that she was always running from. Visions of muggle science fiction and alternate dimensions clouded her logical mind for a moment, and she sat in the chair slowly, trying not to think that she existed on the periphery of time, or on an unknown planet, or within a purgatorial stage divorced from reality.

"You were blurry for a moment," Draco put forth, stepping closer. "It's like it was about to work, but something happened."

"I don't know where I am," Hermione said firmly. "That must be it. You have to know where you are, where you're going, and a—"

"General idea of what direction it's in," Malfoy finished. He scratched his temple. "It looks like we need to figure out what the painting enchantment really does after all."

Hermione sighed, the sense of calm returning as she breathed. Despite the failure, this only proved her hypothesis that they needed to understand what was really happening with enchanted art. Which meant that researching the charm itself actually did have some benefit beyond curiosity or the pursuit of knowledge—it was potentially her ticket back to Hogwarts.

Hermione looked up at the frame, at Malfoy beyond as he rubbed his temple absently. This was so much easier when he was actually talking to her and listening to her. Despite him pouring over history books for the last few days, this was actually the most progress they had made at all. All that research hadn't helped them yet, but just by working together they had managed to discover more about this world.

"I'm... sorry if I've been combative lately," Hermione said uncertainly. "I just... I wish I could describe it to you. That beach is just... mad."

Malfoy waved his hand, his eyebrows furrowed as he looked between the portrait and the beach scene.

Hermione leaned forward on the desk. "Malfoy, you don't have to figure this out on your own. I know I can be... a little intense. I'm not completely unaware of what people say about me. But... well, I can help fix this. I just need you to let me."

He sighed through his nostrils, and Hermione waited for a proper response, subconsciously holding her breath.

"I'm going to breakfast," he said finally, his arms dropping. "I'll be back after."

He turned and edged out of the space, and Hermione leaned back in her chair. She would have felt more disappointed if the painting wasn't draping that muffling, empty feeling over her. It wasn't calm, per se, it was almost... an emotionlessness. Her fear, her anxiety, her sense of distaste towards the ill-tempered Slytherin, all were muffled and stifled in this stone-cold room.

As Hermione leaned back in the chair, letting the silence and chill bare down upon her, she let her mind drift. She was different here somehow; the strokes of her body were similar, but the tone was different, the shine, the intensity of her shadows... and the way she was feeling.

Something wasn't sitting right. The fact that this painting was cold, yes, but so calm... it was such a sharp departure from what she'd grown to expect that she was beginning to question the normality of Malfoy's landscape. The magic itself didn't seem to be malfunctioning or broken, despite the way in which the painting was charmed. It was as if the anxiety-inducing haze that blanketed the beach was by design, built in. It was intentional.

And the fact that she couldn't use magic there but could here... her first instinct of the beach was right: it was a world in which magic didn't exist. That was the way the painting was architected.

By Malfoy.

He painted that violent sunset, the otherworldly white sand and distant mountains. He created that _world_.

There was something of the artist left in these paintings, something that came through in subtle ways. The history books always eluded to the way paintings looked, and how visual tension or harmony impacted the scene. But it was becoming apparent that paintings could not only look, but truly _feel_ whimsical, or lighthearted, or dreary and full of despair. They could be vividly patriotic, imbued with strength, or they could be precious with tender fragility. And they could feel disjointed and tense, harboring intense paranoia.

If Hermione was ever unsure of how Malfoy was feeling, she was sure now. He'd left an imprint of his emotions, of his desires, right there on the canvas.

Hermione looked to her left, at the dark expanse she knew led to the beach. If she listened closely, she could hear the waves crash as though she was hearing it through a closed window.

She stood from the small desk and stepped over the void. The darkness lifted to the vivid reds and purples, and her trainers depressed into the bone-white sand.

The change was immediately noticeable; it was like a hazy dream giving way to a frightful wakefulness, like being shaken out of a pleasant thought. It was perhaps no different than stepping from one room into another, but the very air she breathed was acrid, full of dissonance.

It really was the calm before the storm, the final exhale before a shot was fired.

Hermione furrowed her brows, fighting through the anxiety to get back to her original thought. So if Malfoy painted this, was this what he was feeling? Anxious, paranoid? And like... this frightful paradise was perfect?

She shook her head, letting the light breeze carry her hair off her shoulders. She didn't want to expend energy on determining what Malfoy was thinking; she just wanted to be free of this situation, and go back to never talking to the prick unless he was in her way.

Despite this, she was curious about his painting—why had he painted it? Where was this place? And of all the things he could have painted, why paint a beach at sunset?

Hermione sighed, concentrating on warming up by rubbing her shoulders. Somehow, just knowing that she didn't have to stay here was already making her feel better, but she was still bored, and the helplessness that had made her almost cry in front of her classmate was hovering just beyond a barricade that could come down at any moment.

Just then, the sounds of someone doing a poor job of edging through the towering stacks of books met her ears, and she walked down the beach toward the suspended frame, stepping into the warm tide as it rushed forward.

Ron cringed as he knocked over a tower of books; the books crashed to the ground, falling over each other and slapping against the paintings against the side wall. The duchess huffed in annoyance, took a breath, and started scolding him as he took out his wand, his ears red.

"Try _reparo_ ," Hermione put forth. "Those were the muggle books, you should just be able to just fix the stack, no fuss."

Ron said a quiet 'thank you' and used the spell, and the pair watched as the strewn pages reattached and the books shuffled back into place.

As the stack teetered, Ron edged over to her, a weary smile finally surfacing. His eyes were so bloodshot they were nearly the same color as his reddened skin.

Hermione's throat constricted unwillingly; he must have been upset earlier. He hadn't talked to her about losing his brother, but she knew that sometimes he sat at the edge of the grounds, staring into the dark forest. Looking at him now, with his light cloak on and shoes slightly muddy, it seemed that he had been out there already.

"You're hanging up now," he said conversationally, a smirk pulling at his mouth. He reached into his pocket and produced a half-unwrapped candy bar, which he bit into.

Hermione smiled. He seemed to think that an appropriate way to cheer her up was to jokingly treat her like an inanimate object. It had annoyed her before, but now it felt endearing.

"Yeah, Malfoy and I—oh Ron, watch this."

She walked over to the void she knew led to the portrait and stepped into it, sighing as the warmth disappeared and she was enveloped by that frigid sense of calm.

"Whoa, that's wicked!" Ron exclaimed, coming closer; Malfoy had hung the paintings slightly higher than eye-height, so he had to look up at her. "What's that _like_ , walking between the paintings?" he asked.

Hermione shrugged, looking behind her at the simple dark backdrop, the lone candlestick on a wooden table. "It's like... walking between rooms. Only every room makes you feel a different kind of way," she said.

"So this one... it doesn't make you anxious?"

She leaned against the table. "No, this one is pretty calm. It's just... kind of cold."

"That's a relief," he put forth. "I'd take a chill over anxiety any day." He glanced behind him and _accio_ ed Malfoy's chair between the leaning frames and stacks of books, which he sat in. "So you're close to figuring out how to get back?"

Hermione shook her head, her eyes prickling briefly; Ron looked away, fiddling with the candy wrapper in his hand. She played off the emotion by walking back to the beach; even though her heartbeat quickened and her back tensed, the instant warmth soothed the goose-flesh plaguing her skin, and after a minute she could relax her jaw.

"The, um, the outside of the castle is starting to look alright," Ron murmured, pulling his legs up to sit cross-legged in the wooden chair. The wrapper crinkled in his fingers.

"That's good," Hermione said. "Hopefully they'll take care of this side soon enough."

"Yeah, fix that hole..." he trailed off, looking out at open fields beyond the hole in the wall. Hermione craned, hoping to see it, but she could only make out a sliver of golden light, right on the edge of the jagged stone bricks of the side wall.

"I heard Flitwick say that they'll start on this end soon." He shivered, holding his arms. "It's wicked cold over here already... can't imagine what it's like at night."

"I mean, I can't feel it, it's different in the paintings," Hermione sighed, stepping back. She slowly came down to her knees and sat on the sand, mimicking Ron's cross-legged pose.

"Harry is coming," Ron said, his eyes brightening. "I know you haven't seen it, but it's been all over the _Prophet_. They've finished sweeping Malfoy Manor. The aurors are mostly looking for the remaining Death Eaters now."

Hermione perked up; Ron and her other friends were her only source of news now, her only connection to the outside world.

"Is he coming back to take his N.E.W.T.s? Is he going to help with the school?"

Ron sighed. "I don't know. I told him what happened to you, and he wants to come and make sure you're okay. In his letter, he also mentioned something about helping with the castle, but I don't think he's going to take his N.E.W.T.s. If he does, it'll probably just be the Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts ones. I think he might join the Auror Office."

"Oh, Harry," Hermione sighed. "I wish he would take them all and complete his schooling. I know he likes to keep moving forward, but... I don't know. He might regret it."

"He might," Ron echoed, "but I think he wants to get his life started, you know? Even I don't want to be back here, but... well, after everything that happened, I... you know..." he trailed off awkwardly.

"Yeah, it feels good to do something normal like study or clean," Hermione said. "Well, it did, before I got stuck in here."

"Yeah."

They sat together in silence; a million questions burned in Hermione's mind, all colliding and fighting to get out, but she stayed silent, watching Ron as he fiddled with the wrapper in his hands. Despite the nauseating paranoia of the beach, with the wind going and Ron sitting on the other side, she let her eyes close and just reveled in the warmth, the warm touch of the sand to her bare ankles.

She would never view beaches the same way, she realized. While she'd used to view them as the perfect place to relax, now she knew she wouldn't be able to think that anymore. How could she, when this white sand and beautiful shoreline made her nothing but anxious and cranky?

"He's back," Ron said quietly.

Hermione opened her eyes; just over Ron's shoulder she could make out movement.

She swallowed, her disappointment potent as she stood. She wished she could just stay with Ron, even if he didn't always know what to say to her, even though they always reached that awkward silence towards the end... it was better than sitting around for hours with nothing to do.

"Okay, Ron, I guess I'll see you later." She waved, her smile not quite reaching her eyes, and turned to trek up the beach.

"Hermione, look."

She turned, and he was staring up at her from his standing position.

"It's going to be okay," he said evenly. "Whatever happens, Malfoy will fix it. And if he can't, we will find someone who will."

Hermione nodded numbly, watching as Ron waved and left, passing Malfoy on the way out of the library. Once he was gone, she turned and walked up the beach, letting the breeze blow through her clothing as she came upon the long grasses of the meadow.

When she returned to the beach sometime later, Draco was there beyond the suspended frame, reading, but a large book was blocking her view of him as it floated in front of her painting.

"I've charmed these books to respond to commands," he murmured without looking up, "so if you want to turn a page, just say 'next,' 'back,' 'contents' and so on."

Hermione stepped closer, her feet sliding down the sand, and read the title in the top left of the current page— _12th Century Masters Of Craft_. Under the corner, she could see a dozen floating stacks of books, all sporting variations of _art_ and _enchantment_ in their titles.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

Draco said nothing else, just continued reading.

* * *

 _Author's Note (01/05/19)_ : Hey everyone, thank you for the reviews! As always, let me know what you think! I'm curious if people already have theories of why Malfoy painted the beach. It's gonna be bonkers, let me tell ya. See you next chapter!


	5. Ivory

_"All knowledge has its origins in our perceptions"—Leonardo da Vinci_

 **Chapter Five: Ivory**

With books suddenly at her disposal, Hermione felt unstoppable.

Research was what she did, how she navigated things she didn't understand. She loved following paths of information that turned and weaved, buried in old texts that hadn't been cracked in centuries. With a book in hand, any question could be answered—the trick was knowing how to search.

And if there was one thing Hermione was good at, it was unearthing webs of connected magic until the underlying composition of everything became clear.

She could detect and define a framework for magic unlike most of her peers, which is why she picked up everything so quickly. She made a point to understand the _why_ , not just the _how_. And because she understood very little about art magic, she dove in head-first.

The sheer breadth of information she had never been privy to before astounded her. Sure, she had read tidbits here and there about the history of enchanted art, but it had never gripped her with fascination as it did now. The lives of the artists were as closely tied to their paintings as their paintings were tied to changing history.

That common thread of magic and enchantment, binding the artist to their work, was riveting. Though Hermione still hadn't found any indication that artists had known what they were creating when they enchanted their paintings (she could tell by the static and flippant way in which an enchanted painting was treated as an object semantically,) there was still a rich backstory to every well-known piece.

There were other surprising notes as well: names Hermione knew from the muggle art world that apparently transcended all of human history. For example, magic illustrated a clear link between the birth of muggle Surrealism and the fantastical work of Jean Surablow, as he'd been good friends with Salvador Dali. Hieronymus Bosch, celebrated in the muggle world for his intensely bizarre and intricate scenes created well before any notion of surrealist absurdity, was actually a metamorphamagus. In the muggle world, Bosch was easily considered ahead of his time, but in reality he just had an excellent model for his work—himself.

Reading these names was a pleasant surprise to her research, and sometimes Hermione forgot to skim the texts in favor of just enjoying the act of learning. She had reluctantly read the history books at first, since her goal was really to understand the magic behind the Animated Art Charm, but understanding more about the process and history of magical art made her understand more about why artists used the charm in the first place.

Hermione sighed, stepping away from the suspended frame and stretching her arms. Doing research while standing up was somewhat awkward, but she didn't want to accost Draco for another request yet, not when he had just been marginally civil to her.

She rolled her neck, stepped forward, and said, "Next, please." The page flipped.

Currently, she was reading about the oil painting enchantment and how it was used in still life painting. The process was the same—the artist needed to have a clear idea of what they wanted, and as long as it matched the painting, the enchantment would be stable. As she skimmed the book, occasionally saying 'next, please' to flip a page, she absently wondered what would happen if an artist painted something they'd never experienced. If the artist had never tasted cheese before, could they truly replicate it on canvas? If they'd never drunk wine, would they know how alcohol affected the system? Would they be able to instill the complexities of taste, smell, and touch into their work? Was what they painted affected by their own experience, right down to the textures in their world?

Hermione wanted to test some of these theories, experiment with the paintings to see what the limits were, but as she'd learned to do, she brushed aside the distracting excitement and curiosity to stay focused. After this was over, she may have time to indulge her inquisitive mind and flesh out her understanding of magical art, but for the time being she had a mission.

* * *

The rest of the day was relatively peaceful. Draco came and went, occasionally taking a break from reading to work on the collection, listening to the idle chatter of the paintings as he cleaned.

Despite the sudden tranquility, cleaning was still a drag. It required all of his focus to concentrate on short strokes with the cloth, very delicate, making sure to not disturb the paint too much. Cleaning even a hands-width took some time. For the larger paintings it took two, maybe three days to clean them thoroughly, including restoring the dusty paint, cleaning and re-gilding the frame, and making sure the scene was the same as before. So many paintings were in disarray from the inside, with tables overturned or mirrors broken, and a large portion of the art had figures missing entirely. Those particular paintings stood eerily quiet and empty, their lack of a focal point giving the effect of a silent street devoid of life.

That said, it was still rare that Draco had to open his case and touch actual paint to canvas when restoring the collection; most of the paintings just had tears or splatterings of dust and ash, nothing a quick spell or cloth couldn't fix. It was a relief to actually create something.

Draco _could_ elect to repaint the figures—Merlin knows he was itching to do something actually creative, it was why he'd done the beach scene in the first place—but it was an incredibly arduous task, better saved for after the collection was cleaned. If he cleaned and repaired the art, he would still have fulfilled the terms of his service, despite the lack of figures.

Draco paused in his cleaning, his cloth hovering above a sooty canvas, and looked over at the unfinished portrait of Hermione Granger.

It sat against the far wall, underpainting still shining with wet paint, the unfinished figure ghoulish in dark, flat browns.

It seemed like such a waste, to start a painting that he wouldn't finish.

In a way it was like a weight was lifted. He didn't need to awkwardly stare at Granger for hours, trying to ignore her while simultaneously scrutinizing her tiniest details, churning through endless parchment to understand her form. But he couldn't help but trace the lines of the unfinished figure, wishing that he could continue making something that was _his,_ instead of cleaning and repairing artwork from other painters.

Perhaps he should continue working on the portrait, even though Granger didn't need it anymore; it would give him a creative outlet while potentially helping them in the long run. Despite the circumstances, it had been a welcome relief to the monotony of cleaning.

As for the subject, well, it was not something Draco would have chosen to paint, but like any artistic challenge he could get past that and treat it as a chance to practice.

As long as Granger was quiet, he could paint her and it didn't seem too abrasive.

Having her help with the research was turning out to be tolerable. He'd been afraid to before, his mind clouded with ideas of her snotty comments and overbearing questions, or constant requests to turn pages. A quick talk with Flitwick over breakfast had given him a set of charms that made it possible for her to read the books without having to touch them. Draco had mentally kicked himself about that afterward; had they not used similar charms to be hands-free with their potions books during brewing days?

Draco looked up at the beach painting. Granger was sitting on the shore, her furrowed eyebrows just visible over the top of the book levitating in front of the wall. Every once in a while she would murmur, 'Next please,' and a page would turn. While repeating the same phrase over and over would have bugged Draco just a week ago—he'd heard someone say ' _wingardium leviosa_ ' in the corridor earlier and had nearly hexed them—her voice was different when she was reading. Quiet, small, and absent.

"Well, I finally got you to shut up," Draco commented. "Should have thought of this sooner."

"You _didn't_ think of this, not that it matters," Hermione retorted easily. "Next, please." The page flipped, and her head disappeared a little more behind her book.

Draco sat back. "You don't have to say 'please' every time, you're not asking for a favor."

"I make it a point to be genial, no matter the circumstance," she said to that. "And who are we to know what a charmed thing feels?"

He snorted. "We're wizards, and I guarantee that a charmed thing doesn't feel anything."

"Well, we still don't know what magic really is," Hermione replied in that same low, disinterested voice. "How can we understand what truly powers our world?"

Draco stared at his beach, watching Granger's furrowed eyebrows just above the book. He'd never thought about magic in this way before. Magic was something that was always in his service, it wasn't a thing he had to think about. It was his life, it was expected. Thinking about the makeup of magic was like thinking about the existence of air, or gravity, or life itself.

Granger on the other hand... she didn't grow up with this. Magic wasn't new to her, but she didn't rely on it in the same way. It was an amenity to her.

It was something to be _grateful_ for.

Draco looked down at the table, suddenly disoriented. His faithful wand was resting unmoving beside him. He reached for and took up the familiar wood, his fingers sliding over the worn but polished surface. It held so many memories, triumphs... defeats. They had grown together, the wood morphing over time as Draco became more and more himself. There were very few things in this world that he loved as much, that he trusted. He'd been beyond furious when Potter had taken it, so much that he'd chased him down amidst the battle to get it back. Taking someone's wand was like taking their arm.

And even now Draco felt the handicap, placed on his wand by the government, that prevented some hexes, curses, and apparently some random spells from working. Not having those spells at his disposal made him feel distinctly vulnerable, exposed, even though he wouldn't necessarily run about the castle casting hexes and apparating all over.

Draco glanced back at Granger; her narrowed eyes darted back and forth. "Next, please," she murmured.

Draco took a breath, then leaned forward to continue cleaning. He didn't speak to her for the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

Despite not being able to answer her most pressing questions, Hermione was starting to form new ideas of what was really occurring with enchanted art. The more Hermione researched and the more she thought about paintings, the laws of them, the more it became clear what was happening.

There were two options in her mind.

The first possibility was that each of these works was their own world, and something about the painting charm annexed space, the way that wizards hid their streets and complexes from the muggle world. The incantation held some elements of space-altering magic, which she knew just from her own understanding of the etymology—it shared a common root with the Undetectable Extension Charm, the charm she'd used on her beaded bag so she could carry heaps of equipment while in hiding.

The second option was that this wasn't a real space, but something like a memory.

She'd never viewed a memory firsthand, but had heard Harry's retelling of what it was like. When he was present in the memory, events went on as they had occurred in real life, unchanging and forever repeating, like a skipping record. But the key was that it felt real, as real as the ground beneath her feet, the sounds of birds, the grit swirling through sea water.

She had other vague ideas of the charm having some effect on the compounds within the paint, but those two options rose with the most clarity in her mind. Now she just needed to push on them to prove her hypotheses.

The next morning, by the time the sun sliced through the room in hot rays Hermione was already awake, waiting on the beach. She looked up eagerly when Malfoy entered, making his presence known with his shuffling.

"Good morning," Hermione said, peering around her books.

Malfoy grumbled something back at her, and the sound of moving canvases with sleepy occupants met her ears.

"If you're running out of space, you can always hang up the paintings over here," she put forth. "I'd love to get my hands on a quill and parchment too."

"I've got some parchment 'ere," the wizard with the pointed hat said, yawning. "I'd gladly share."

"He'd gladly share," Hermione echoed.

Malfoy looked around at the narrow passageways he'd been using to navigate between the stacks of books and the leaning frames. It was like ant trails, and more than once he'd nicked an elbow or a knee on a wayward frame.

"Alright," he sighed.

He spent the next twenty minutes levitating and hanging some of the clean paintings against the back wall. Hermione watched him hang the painting with the cheetah, the cheetah's ears flat to her head as the canvas hovered; the painting with the pointy-hat wizard; the old sir with the barking Maltese; the room with a chaise lounge, Greek hills just outside the window.

Before long he'd hung a half-dozen paintings, all in a straight line with his beach scene, gilded frames of every style positioned edge-to-edge. Hermione experimentally walked between them, traversing the beach, then the dark room, the garden with the fountain, then the curious painting with an empty chaise lounge beside a tray of fruits, cheeses, wine, and a silver wine glass. Next to that was the painting with the alchemist entertaining the court, a portrait of a woman with a fantastical fur stole, and the painting of the old sir with the Maltese and the bread. Each painting felt different: the garden was whimsical and fluttery, and Hermione almost forgot what she was doing after being in there for only a few seconds; the alchemist's painting was deeply inspiring, full of a resolute determination; and the painting with the chaise was warm, but the feeling that settled over her there scared her, and she found herself sweating just by passing through it.

Her explorations done, she went back to the empty room, letting the chill calm reclaim her, and sat. She'd gathered paper from the man with the pointed hat, a quill from the alchemist, and had resolved to visit the fountain painting for a wash once Malfoy went away for the night. The sand in her clothes and shoes were a constant nuisance to her concentration; with any luck the cheetah would be asleep so she could wash in peace.

"So after thinking about the paintings, I have a few theories I want to prove out," Hermione said, setting her new items on the desk.

In the library, Malfoy brushed aside a pile of parchment rolls, all sporting variations of Hermione's face, her hands, and her sitting posture.

"I'm going to need any books you can find about space-altering and concealment to start."

Malfoy moved his books onto the desk, stacking them one on top of the other. "So you think the paintings are actually creating space."

Hermione leaned back, fingers curling over her fresh parchment. "Uh, it's just one theory. I was going to prove it out before I... got feedback on it."

A heavy silence hung between them, as Hermione waited for Malfoy to say something. When he just continued organizing the books, she sat up straighter and continued.

"I also... really need the _Charm Etymology Encyclopedia_. I know the charms section is still a mess, but..."

"You want to break down the enchantment, I know," Malfoy finished. He ran a hand through his hair, looking around the stacks of ancient tomes as they swayed in the breeze from the missing sidewall. Hermione watched him curiously.

"On my end, I've been looking for any indication that someone has done this before," Draco put forth. "I've narrowed it down to the eighteenth century or later. Post-enlightenment, there was an explosion of new technologies and ideas in both the formal and decorative arts. With the increase in trade and visibility between magical communities, people were pioneering a lot of techniques that are still used today."

Hermione nodded eagerly; she'd read a little about this period in one of the books Malfoy had charmed for her, but was slightly intimidated by the fluid and natural way he spoke about art history. She was further behind than she thought. She resolved to finish reading that history book by midday.

"So if someone was experimenting with the charm and accidentally bound something to a painting, it probably happened during this age of experimentation," she replied.

He nodded.

For a moment Hermione just listened to the sounds from the paintings as they rose and stretched, exchanged morning pleasantries and light gossip.

The boy in front of her nudged a stack with his foot, and it teetered briefly before settling.

"For the record, I don't think looking into space-altering magic is a bad idea. You should... ah," he sighed, rubbing his face, and muttered finally, "We should probably be working through these concepts together."

Hermione stared at him, watching the blond strands move, lifted from the wind blowing in. Unsettled somehow, she stared as Draco pinched the bridge of his nose, the crease deepening between his closed eyes.

Realizing she hadn't said anything yet, Hermione rushed, "Yeah, absolutely. That would be preferable, actually..."

"I know McGonagall wants me to fix this," Draco put forth, gesturing, "but I need to keep working on the collection."

"And the library," Hermione added. "I understand. If you set more books up for me, I'll do the searching today."

Oriented with a purpose, Draco turned his back to her and shuffled through the books he'd just organized, charming each one of them in a quiet murmur.

* * *

As Draco worked on the ruin of the Arithmancy section, beginning to move the books into shorter piles against the unbroken walls, Hermione dug into the new research material. With a clear goal she was able to be more targeted with analysis. As she usually did when beginning a new project she started by writing down the questions she wanted to answer. This kept her focused on her goal without being distracted by erroneous information. Then she went through the material question by question, filling out the possibilities with each hypothesis. She started with the etymology, since that was the biggest question in her mind and the most straightforward way to understand how the charm was put together.

When Malfoy came in later, perhaps after lunch, Hermione was waiting on the beach with her parchment in hand.

"In starting to break down the etymology I've found some interesting things," she said. "There's a common root with dozens of charms, but the one that stood out to me was the Undetectable Extension charm, which is—"

"I know what it is," Malfoy said automatically, batting the floating books away to clear his view of the beach.

As he dropped into his chair and faced the art-rich stone wall, Hermione pressed on. "It also shares a root with some color manipulation spells, like _dyerona_ for changing the color of garments, and _balsoitus_ for oil manipulation—"

"I would certainly hope so," Malfoy sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Please tell me you found out more than just that."

She paused. "Well, I think a charms expert would—"

"McGonagall mentioned that we should talk to Flitwick."

The warm breeze whipped at Hermione's arms as they fell to her sides.

"And you're _just_ _now_ telling me this?"

Malfoy stared at her. "What does it matter?"

"Malfoy, we could have asked him about this _days_ ago."

"Well, yes, but… why would—"

"Are you even _trying_ to sort this out?!" Hermione raged, backing up from the suspended frame, arms now wide and accusatory.

"Wha—yes! I've been—haven't you seen— _I've been painting you!_ " Draco scathed, as though that was the highest demonstration of effort he could show.

"You've been halfheartedly moving paintings around and—I don't know, reading books about history, and it's just…" Hermione waved a dismissive hand at him, turning away and plopping down on the dune.

As she pulled the sand between her fingers, she became aware of the sickeningly warm breeze, that dissonant buzz that usually had her looking over her shoulder. It was like the environment was closing in, slowly suffocating her, ropes holding her arms. Her volatile emotions were like the tide, rolling back and forth and back and forth, cresting and waning endlessly…

Oh. Bugger.

"This place," she grumbled, and rose to her feet, the sand trailing down her sides.

She walked to the end of the painting and stepped over the threshold, sighing as a sense of calm emptiness replaced her growing anger. She was still irritated—Malfoy should have mentioned anything that could potentially help them, it could have saved them time—but now she was more irritated at the beach for making her overreact.

When she looked back up, Malfoy was staring at her almost warily, gauging her expression.

"Don't give me that look," Hermione snapped, plopping down in the oak chair and resting her face in her hand. "So what did Flitwick say?" she asked.

"You can't just yell at me whenever you want to," Malfoy retorted.

"I'm _sorry_ ," Hermione ground out, clenching her own face between strained fingers. "Okay? That dumb painting is the worst."

"It's not—urgh," Malfoy sighed, putting his own head in his hand. " _You're_ the worst."

Hermione bit her lip to keep from responding, and before she knew it they had sat in silence for more than a few deep breaths. As the bland serenity of the empty portrait permeated her being, she sighed, releasing her face and leaning back in her chair. The blood filled her cheeks again, warm under the cool, still air.

"Alright, Malfoy, I'm serious. What did you ask Flitwick?"

He sighed as well, nostrils flared as he avoided her gaze. "I asked him if he knew anything about the Animated Art Charm and he said he knew of it but no details."

"I don't want to ask him about that," Hermione replied. "Well, I do, but—I want to ask him about the classification of charms. He may not know about the charm itself, but he knows about charm classification and how it impacts enchantments."

Draco nodded slowly, his eyebrows furrowed. Hermione waited for his inevitable dissent.

"Why would the classification—?"

"Because etymology is only a _piece_ of how spells relate to each other. As they say, there's more than one way to—"

"I know, Granger," Malfoy groaned. "I meant, why not ask him directly about what happened?"

"Just—can you bring Flitwick in here?" Hermione exasperated. "Either way, we need him."

* * *

Twenty minutes later Professor Flitwick was standing in front of Hermione's wall, arms crossed as he studied the progress.

"Thank you for taking time away from the restoration to speak with us," Hermione said, readying her parchment.

"Of course, Miss Granger, getting you back to normal is top of mind for all of us. I do apologize that I haven't been of more help. Helping Mister Malfoy here with charming the books was the least I could do."

"Not at all, thank you, I know you must be busy... Professor, what can you tell us about the painting charm?"

Flitwick rolled back on his heels. "Ah yes, the Animated Art Charm. Very complex magic, if you couldn't tell by the ease in which it is botched." He gestured at Hermione, and Malfoy's ears reddened noticeably.

"Unfortunately I've never been artistically inclined, though I admire such skills," the professor continued. "It's such a rare pastime in today's world. All the great portrait painters of the twentieth century are more or less gone, claimed by time or the War."

"It doesn't help that a few of the remaining ones were Death Eaters," Draco murmured.

Hermione looked over at her professor; Flitwick met Draco's eyes, and there was a steeliness there that Hermione remembered from the battle, when Flitwick had borne fiery flashes and sparks down on enemy after enemy. He'd always had a cheery—yet resolute—exterior, and it had been disorienting to see him unleash such horror in a duel.

"Yes, portraits are rarely commissioned for progressive families," the professor replied. "It's often a tradition of the Old Way."

"I've studied the charm in the last few days," Hermione put forth, "but I've never performed it. Apparently, the artist is supposed to 'hold the vision of their art in their mind' and then say the incantation..."

"And with the three sides of advanced casting joined—incantation, intention, and catalyst—the spell can properly activate," the professor finished.

"But what happens when something is missing? It's such a complex incantation that—"

"I mean normally it wouldn't matter, correct?" the professor said. "You're performing the incantation on an inanimate object. If you make a mistake, a quick ' _finite incantatem_ ' will likely reset it, provided there is no other magic at play."

"We tried _finite incantatem._ Nothing happened."

"I wouldn't be so sure," he said to that, raising an eyebrow. "That is a flaw in our own perceptions - that we rely on them to judge. But magic exists whether we see it happen or not, and _changes_ whether we perceive the change or not. Just because you can't see something doesn't mean it never happened."

Draco rubbed a hand over his face, eyes shut tight. "Dammit," he grumbled.

"Functionally it may not matter, as the beach painting appears unharmed," the professor continued. "I'd be more concerned with how this predicament occurred in the first place."

"What do you think, Professor?"

The professor stepped forward, beady eyes roving over the beach; the painted figures nearby watched with mild attention.

"Well, it would appear that you were transported into this painting in some fashion," Flitwick replied, "which can only mean that some element of transportation magic manifested when the enchantment was cast." He rubbed a thumb over his chin thoughtfully, and Hermione and Draco waited, watching the brilliant wizard puzzle through his thoughts.

"Were you casting a charm yourself, Miss Granger? When this happened to you?"

"I... I don't remember..."

" _Yes_ ," Draco said suddenly. "You were levitating something. A book."

" _A History of Magic_ ," Hermione sighed. "Professor, I was using a levitation charm."

The professor's furry eyebrows rose. "Oh, well, that is very interesting. In that case—well, it is highly unlikely, but—it is possible that the enchantment reacted to the other magic. But the only way for that to happen is if two of the three sides of advanced casting—probably the incantation and the intention—of the casters to be in alignment."

Hermione fought a slight nausea, fiercely keeping her eyes away from Malfoy's.

"You've seen an example of this with Harry and the Dark Lord's wands—when pitted against each other, the twin catalysts reacted to each other," the professor went on. "Magic is never expelled and forgotten. It is always reacting, shaped by both condition and casting."

 _Shaped_ by the caster... how had Malfoy _shaped_ this?

"Professor, are levitation and transportation spells similar?" Hermione asked quickly.

"Some believe that they use the same method of manipulation, yes," Professor Flitwick answered. "In studying the Levitation Charm, what did we learn about this?"

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut, her brain going back in time to her first year, digging through endless slides of information. "That... though the charm makes objects levitate, it is unclear how it does that. Warlocks and spellcrafters debate whether it is primarily the ' _wingardium_ '—which has a root in the manipulation of air—or the ' _leviosa_ ' which shares common roots in apparition magic."

Draco went completely still, his eyes unseeing.

"Yes, very good Miss Granger. Though the Levitation Charm seems to exist on its own in the charm family, it does in fact bare resemblance to apparition charms of various types, such as Summoning charms and transportation charms like ' _portus_.'"

Hermione rubbed her chin, eyebrows furrowed as she considered this.

"Thanks, Professor, we'll let you know if we have any other questions," Malfoy said stiffly. The professor glanced at him, perhaps surprised at the sudden cordiality, but said his goodbyes all the same.

When the professor stepped through the broken arches, exiting the vast room, Hermione turned angry eyes on Malfoy.

"Why did you do that? I still had things I wanted to ask!"

But he wasn't listening; his shoulders were tensed as he stepped away from the wall.

"Great Merlin's wrinkled bum, I said ' _leviosa_ ,'" he groaned, his eyes squeezed shut. He rubbed a hand over his rapidly splotching face.

"What are you—"

"I said ' _leviosa_ ' when I was casting the charm."

"You said ' _leviosa_ ' instead of what?"

He sighed. "Instead of ' _livitriam_.'"

"Does that mean..."

Draco nodded. "Yeah, I think that's why you were sealed into the painting. I said the incantation—"

Hermione shook her head. "No, Draco, I was going to say, does that mean that there is something wrong with the enchantment on the beach? It's incomplete somehow."

He stared at her, distantly unsettled by her response but unsure why.

"If it's incomplete, it shouldn't function the same as the other paintings..." she murmured, "there would be something missing... but I can still stand here, walk here, _exist_ here."

Realizing that Hermione was talking, Draco said, "Despite the incantation being altered, the painting appears to be fine from my end."

"I mean, being in the other paintings confirmed that they _all_ have some kind of control over an occupant's mental state," Hermione continued, her brow furrowing, "and obviously the air is breathable, the waves move, and the sky doesn't change... honestly, I can't tell the difference between the beach scene and the other paintings, in terms of the laws."

"So are you saying that I didn't need the last part of the charm?"

"No, I'm saying... the charm still worked despite changing part of the incantation. It makes me wonder what the ' _livitriam_ ' part does. What role it plays."

"I don't know what each part of the charm does," Draco said. "I mean, I could guess that the first part, ' _aperiam en porta_ ' is pretty straightforward. But the rest of it..."

"I'll look into it," Hermione sighed. "I researched the first part. You're right, it's straightforward—roots in decorative arts magic, oil manipulation, color manipulation... completely understandable. And ' _modica_ '—it has a shared root with space-altering magic, like—"

"The Undetectable Extension Charm," Draco put forth.

"The final research I need to do is on the ' _vitae_ ,' 'vitam,' and the last part. ' _Resurgemus livitriam_.'" Hermione sighed, leaning back in her chair.

For the first time since becoming trapped she felt like she was truly making sense of the situation. She met Malfoy's gaze; his own eyebrows were furrowed, fingers catching strands of hair that had fallen in his face. His eyes seemed clear, focused, much different than the lazy, disinterested looks he'd given her before.

After a breath he looked away, and Hermione sighed and stood, rolling her neck in preparation for further research.

* * *

Late afternoon brought with it a few helpers, warily eying Malfoy as they moved stacks of books aside to make way for more art. Shattered marble statues and bronze replicas now stood against the far wall, some trying to find their broken pieces and reattach them.

"McGonagall," Draco muttered under his breath.

The library was becoming a safe haven for damaged art of all types it seemed. With stone, marble, and bronze statues joining the mess, the work Draco was doing to move the books and paintings out of the way now seemed essential. He'd have to find a better way to organize the books now, with the previously clear floor space now housing the broken statues.

"Apparently we're fixing these after we get the rest of the corridors done," Hannah said as she levitated the one-eyed witch statue, now missing arms, against the wall. "So don't bother moaning about doing more work."

Draco said nothing, jaw working as the group finished.

Their tasks done, the small group of students hovered around Hermione's wall, chatting about the restoration. Hermione searched their faces for the familiar green eyes and messy locks of her best friend, but Harry was not among them. Despite this her mood perked up as Ron came through the door, grinning his big grin as he carried a bag of marble pieces over his shoulder. He dropped the bag unceremoniously, ignoring the crunching and the protests of the broken statues.

"We're doing some experiments with the tentacula that have been beneficial to the ruined soil," Neville was saying. "They have natural filters—"

"Yes, they can absorb toxins from their dirt," Hermione interjected. "Even poisons can be purified through their vascular system. It does affect their ability to move, however."

"Exactly," Neville sighed. "But since they've taken over Greenhouse Six, the professor and I think it would be okay to spare a few of them. They're an invasive species anyway."

Ron came to stand by him, clapping Neville on the shoulder in greeting. The other boy flinched slightly but smiled all the same.

"That should be the last of the statues," he said to the group. "Hiya."

The group started and turned as a loud crash sounded from the other side of the library; Malfoy had nearly been crushed as a one-legged statue had tried to hop over to the pile of marble rubble. He glared at the now legless statue of a classical adonis, likely the allegorical statue of Ego. Only then did he look up, feeling everyone's eyes on him, and his classmates looked away, scooting closer to Hermione's wall.

"Once we finish staircases, we can put paintings in the stair towers," Ron said, more hushed. "The house elves are working much faster than us, and have already finished the south-end stair tower..."

"But the north end needs more work," Hannah cut in. "Everything was buggered over there."

"Would that help you, Hermione?" Luna asked. "If we were able to hang the paintings out of the library?"

"I mean, I don't mind being in here—"

"But isn't Malfoy in here all the time?"

"Yeah, that's _got_ to be brutal."

"It's not that..." Hermione trailed off, then tried again. "I mean, it's okay. Once he stops being cranky, he... I mean, you must see him during meals."

Ron shrugged. "I thought he would have been complaining and making a scene all over the place, but he's been... pretty quiet."

"Thank Merlin, if he'd been his usual awful self I would have already hexed him into a pulp."

"You wouldn't have done anything," Ron snorted, shaking his head; Terry bit back a grimace.

"I'd be quiet too, if I'd pulled that stunt with You-Know-Who," Hannah muttered.

"You know that wasn't him," Terry put forth. "You saw him last year. You-Know-Who had him practically on a leash."

"Yeah, between that and his dad pulling him out every other day he was in pieces," Neville sighed.

Hermione met Ron's questioning gaze; it occurred to Hermione that they hadn't really asked the others about how their year had gone, what had happened beyond the totalitarian regime of the Carrows, or the silent hammer of Professor Snape. Besides an odd question here or there about which classes they hadn't learned much in, what had transpired over the previous year was still a mystery.

"His dad had him out of school a lot?"

Neville nodded. "Yeah, hardly ever saw him. He certainly didn't have time to pick on us did he, what with his father breathing down his neck, asking him every detail he could about Harry, dragging him off to do Death Eater stuff... oi, watch it." He reached over and plucked a squirming green stick off of Ron's shirt—a bowtruckle had managed to hitch a ride.

Hermione sat back in her chair, watching as the band of students handled the little critter.

She chatted a little longer with her friends until they departed, needing to get back to their various tasks around the castle; Ron waited a little longer to ask her privately how she was, but Hermione waved him away; she was still in study mode, her research in the corner of her thoughts. She was so close to understanding more about the Age of Enlightenment and wanted to finish so she could have a decent discussion with Malfoy about his historical research.

* * *

Now that she wasn't constantly ornery, bristling for a catastrophe that would never come, Hermione was able to balance the irritation at Malfoy with an objective, academic view of the situation. She'd spent years around him, learning when and how to engage with him to get what she needed. After all, they'd been paired in classes more often than she liked to remember, and despite his desire to use those opportunities to torment her, they'd still managed to get their assignments done.

All she had to do was deflect his invitations to argue. Stay steady, recognize the paradigm on which they operate... and walk around it. As long as she did that, Malfoy was little more than an unpleasant inconvenience.

That was his game—give nothing of himself, share nothing, so that there was nothing to poke holes in. And she didn't want to play anymore.

Luckily he wasn't getting on her nerves again; instead, he was hanging more paintings along her wall to create precious space within the overwhelmed library. When he stepped away Hermione left the chilled portrait to traverse the new paintings; next to the beach was the ornery duchess (who Hermione sidestepped quickly,) a starry painting of an old Astronomy professor, and a new empty painting of a comfortable sitting room.

Hermione stopped on the hardwood, her trainers squeaking, and took a breath. She'd tried not to linger in the other paintings on the walls, as the constant highs and lows of passing through each work was dizzying. Anything more than a few seconds and Hermione lost touch with her focus.

She looked around the last room. There was a simple carved vanity near the suspended frame, surrounded by the casual furnishings of a middle-class home. Between the comfortable temperature and lightweight breeze wafting from the painted window, it was not unlike her old bedroom back in London.

A powerful sense of sadness overtook her, and for a moment she was weightless, drifting like a lost soul in an endless sea, black and blue in every direction, and she had to consciously breathe in and out, in and out. As she breathed, Hermione let the sounds of the library filter into her consciousness; broken statues ambling about, chatty portraits gossiping in low tones, books thumping against each other as Malfoy stacked seared, crusty tomes against the broken windows. There was a small noise like an animal, a rustling near the library entrance, a sigh of frustration from her unwilling companion. If she listened hard enough she could hear the waves crash from the beach landscape, and hear chirping outside the jagged windows, the wind rustling the singed Womping Willow.

Reaching a sense of peace, Hermione opened her eyes and sat at the vanity; the chair in this painting was much more comfortable than the utilitarian oak chair of the empty portrait. Hermione glanced behind her at the bright, homey room, taking in the fluttering curtains and elegant wood furniture. It was done in a Dutch style, definitely pre-electricity... Hermione had just been reading about Dutch art...

She heard a small noise, like a cooing, in the black space; she stopped for a moment, listening, but shook her head and set down her materials.

Getting all her questions and thoughts on paper was her next task. By writing everything down, she could declutter her mind and better see the way things were connected.

"The paintings are like little universes. It's like the painters created another world," she murmured to herself as she glanced over her notes. "Different from ours, but... somehow similar. And you can travel between them..."

It wasn't quite right, but—somehow all the spaces were linked. There had to be something in the logic of the charm that made it possible for all these worlds to exist together, side-by-side, with a passage formed between them.

That cooing sound caught her attention again, and she held her breath for a moment but could hear nothing else.

She glanced up; Malfoy had stopped shifting debris and books around and was cross-legged on the floor, cleaning the next painting in his stack. The goblin battle within the painting went on, unaffected by his touch.

Hermione shook her head and focused on her notes.

It was possible for spaces to be linked—for example, in reading about Platform 9 3/4 she'd discovered that it didn't actually exist within Kings Cross Station, but was linked to it through the wall between platforms nine and ten. The actual rail-track for the Hogwarts Express was well outside of London, and the link only existed for convenience.

But what part of the charm manifested this link? It couldn't be the last part, which was omitted unknowingly when Malfoy had cast the charm. It wasn't in the color and oil manipulation magic. And her brief look at 'vitae' had hinted at giving an object motion. But how could she traverse the paintings like stepping from one room to another?

Hermione heard that odd sound again, with more clarity, and she stopped, looking towards the black void to her left.

"Did you hear that?" she asked.

Malfoy stopped as well, his cloth poised above the canvas he was cleaning.

The cry sounded again, barely intelligible as a single word: " _Help._ "

"Hello? Who... where are you?"

"Help!" The person yelled again, but it was so faint that they seemed far away. Hermione knelt quickly at the edge of the hardwood, peering over the black at her feet.

"Can you hear me? Where are you?"

"I don't know," the voice sobbed, and it was definitely a young woman's voice, wafting upwards like a draft.

Hermione crouched, straightening her back, and removed her cardigan with quick pulls.

Draco craned and peered into her painting, sooty cloth still between his fingers.

"What are you doing?"

"There's someone trapped down there, in the void," Hermione breathed, throwing her cardigan aside and taking up her wand. "I've got to investigate."

"It's probably coming from outside the castle—"

"No it isn't, it's—it's coming from the darkness. They're—they're _in_ here!"

"In where?"

"In this painting! They're—" Hermione stopped, listening, her eyes wide and unseeing.

"Granger, you don't know what—"

"I know, I know, but I can't just—there's someone trapped in here!" she put forth, looking around. Struck with inspiration, she pointed her wand at the suspended frame and said, " _Incarcerous_!"

Ropes shot from her wand and wrapped vertically around the frame; she caught the end of the rope and tied it in a knot, pulling the ends fiercely.

Draco looked on incredulously through the ropes as Hermione leaned her weight on the knot; as expected, the suspended portrait of the Hogwarts library was unyielding, not moving in the slightest.

Satisfied, Hermione rushed, " _Extendo_."

The end of the rope grew, and grew, coiling at her knees, snaking around her. As it lengthened, she took her hair tie from the end of her braid and wrapped it twice around her wrist before sticking her wand into it.

Draco was on his feet now. "Granger, whatever you're about to do—"

"I'm going down there," she said forcefully, tying the rope around her middle, "I just want to see what's happening."

"But are you sure that—"

"Please help!" The voice said again. "It's so dark!"

"I'm coming!"

"Granger, _don't—!_ "

But it was too late; with a quick " _Lumos!_ " she disappeared off the edge of the canvas, and Draco watched helplessly as the coils of rope rapidly unraveled, slipping across the hardwood floor, until it was pulled taught.

Heart pounding, chest heaving, Draco grappled the frame helplessly, trying to peer around the rope and see what was happening. The line twitched, then was still.

"Granger, can you hear me?" he rushed, uncaringly pressing his forehead into the crackled paint.

"Yes! I'm fine!" she called back. " _Extendo!_ "

"Come back!" Draco yelled, his breath warming the canvas. "It could be leagues of darkness down there!"

All he could do was wait, and he hung off the painting, breath shallow, mind buzzing. How could she just blindly fall into a space she knew nothing about—what if there was debris down there? Dangerous creatures? Or worse—what if she disappeared?! Did she care so little for her own well-being that she would risk it just to "investigate" something?

Draco cursed under his breath.

The paintings murmured to his left and right, all craning for a look.

"The Grey Death," the alchemist murmured, shaking his head; the paintings around him tittered in agreement, eyes downcast.

"Bloody hell," Draco breathed, heart dropping, mind darting to how he would explain to their teachers what had happened, how the Wizengamot would punish him, and Merlin—would Granger _ever_ be okay? Ever get out of there?

He couldn't know the passage of time now, seconds felt like hours and every sound was both a blessing and a curse, both certain success and failure. All he could think of now was Granger, weightless in grey nothingness, that ridiculous pinched expression of determination on her naïve face. Floating endlessly, cut off from reality and fantasy, in a void where nothing existed… if he could repaint the beach scene now, he would repaint it with that horror, that hopelessness, that sense of purgatory…

After what seemed like an eternity, Draco heard a soft cooing, not unlike the previous sound he'd heard; he leaned against the painting, his ear pressed to the paint.

There was a voice—no, two voices, both female, stumbling over each other. He held his breath.

"Don't worry, it's going to be okay," Hermione consoled. "I've got you, I've got you—hang on, now— _ascendio_!"

The rope slackened, and Draco waited, his eyes now glued to the edge of the paint, as the sound of a woman crying grew louder and louder.

"That's it, just hold on, the rope has us; _ascendio_! Just a bit..."

Draco was staring so intensely at the edge of the paint that he was sure it would peel back and sizzle, just waiting for a change in light, a sudden stroke of umber, anything -

Finally, a hand appeared and slapped the hardwood, the fingers curling and nails catching on the old unpolished planks; Draco let out the breath he'd been holding, his heart still pounding.

Two women struggled over the edge, Hermione using both arms to pull at the rope, her muscles screaming; a sobbing Dutch maiden was gripping Hermione's body with both arms and legs, desperately holding on as Hermione pulled one final time, and the pair tipped over onto the floor in a tangle of fabric and limbs.

" _Are you completely mad?!_ " Draco raged.

"It's over, we're okay now," Hermione gasped, her head thunking against the hardwood heavily, chest heaving.

The other woman didn't get up, she just kept hugging Hermione, her sobs turning into tears of joy.

"Oh Merlin, I can't believe you heard me—thank you, thank you, you're an angel—"

"Adelaide?" A voice over Draco's shoulder said, and he leaned back in alarm; the painting of the knight was speaking.

"Galahad?" The woman asked tentatively. She loosened her grip on Hermione, rising to her knees, her elaborate dress falling back around her legs.

"Adelaide, it's me!" the knight put forth, dropping his shining helmet to the dirt.

"Oh, Galahad, thank goodness—oh, I was so scared..."

Draco put a hand over his heart, cursing the rapid beating like a troll banging to get out. For a moment there he'd thought he'd lost Granger to the void, as so many of the painted figures had been.

He took two more breaths—in, _what a lunatic,_ out, _how could she just_ —in, _bloody unbelievable,_ out, and exploded, "I can't _believe_ you—you just—what if something _happened_ to you?!" he spat, gesturing. "It's bad enough that you're in there—"

"I'm fine," Hermione responded tersely.

"I mean, you just _flung_ yourself over the edge, not knowing anything about what is in there—what if you _died?_ Stupid Gryffindor—"

"Would you shut it?" Hermione shot back. "I'm fine, everything is fine! I'm here, and at least we know where the figures have been disappearing to—oh, I bet the lost figures are just waiting at the bottom of their paintings for someone to find them."

Draco waved in dismissal, pacing in front of her wall, face red.

"This is what you _do,_ " she replied vehemently. "When someone is in trouble you help, no matter what it takes. You don't just sit by, maybe feel sorry for them. You roll up your sleeves and get in there!"

"It may be so easy for you Gryffindors to blindly just—throw caution to the bloody wind, and—Merlin, chuck your lives into the abyss—"

"Well, without Gryffindor bravery, you wouldn't be standing there yourself. Or did you forget that we saved you in the Room of Requirement?"

The sudden silence was unforgiving, as unforgiving as the tears of the painted maiden, the high winds blowing in from beyond the charred stone. Draco's blood ran cold with it, chilled into icy shock.

"What if Harry had decided to leave you to save himself?" Hermione snapped. "What if we hadn't gone around to make sure you got out? Like—it didn't matter who you were in that moment. We couldn't just let you die!"

Adelaide sniffled, the sound impossibly reverberant in the space, and Hermione looked down at her, rubbing soot from the woman's face as she cried. Her skin was slippery like congealed oil paint.

Draco looked down, his heart heavy, hands tingling as that uncomfortable feeling he'd avoided on so many occasions seeped in, wriggling in his stomach.

"We weren't going to let you die. It didn't matter who you were, what you'd done," Hermione repeated softly.

Her soft tone was salt in the cuts, and Draco turned abruptly. A clench of jawbone against skin strained the side of his face.

Hermione stared at him through the portrait, watching his tense frame squared up between the shelves, shoulders sharp through his shirt.

Then he moved, descending between rows of watching portraits, and a dozen eyes followed him as he went, silently judging.

"How can you _live_ with yourself?" Sir Galahad hissed as Draco passed, his eyes glistening with angry tears.

Then Draco was out of the library, down the corridor, acrid air rushing into his lungs that tasted like fire and burning books, like the sweat from his upper lip saturated in soot, like the back of Harry Potter's muggle shirt, caked in grime and ash.

He smacked into a pillar, forehead to gritty stone, stone that had been both a shelter and a prison, had been family and friend to him and yet felt so foreign under his nails, withdrawn from his touch like the peeling of a sneer. He could almost feel it snarling at him in disgust and yet cowering like a beaten animal, love thrown into confusion with betrayal. His lungs were starved for fresh air, and despite the wind the breeze still carried that odd smell of rotting blood, dead plants, and ash from the fire. It had smelled like this for weeks but it was overpowering now, the smell of despair and treason and wasted lives, of everything he'd ever known, both good and bad, going up in flames.

In the new silence, when his throat was open enough to emit sound, Draco uttered a reply to the painting's question:

" _I can't._ "

* * *

 _Author's Note (05/04/19)_ : Wheeeeeeew. Take a deep breath… okay. Hey all! I know this one took a while but I wanted to finish architecting the story before I continued, plus I was in the Valentine's Smut Fest so I was busy writing a new one-shot (yay!) Updates should be more predictable now. Let me know what you think!


	6. Crimson

**Chapter Six: Crimson**

 _"You have to do stuff that average people don't understand because those are the only good things." ~ Andy Warhol_

Draco slid down the pillar, his back to the cracked stone, knees jutting as he shuffled on the filthy corridor floor. There was a blanket of saucy warmth from the heat of the day resting down here, even as the sun disappeared from the wall across the pathway and the pre-sunset orange glow illuminated the remaining stained glass windows.

The other volunteers were likely sitting at the tables in the Great Hall, sliding withered and weary over that polished oak, rolling the knots out of their necks after another long day. The food would be a hot, welcome distraction from the troubles of the afternoon. Weasley would be picking chicken out of his teeth with dirty fingernails, Slughorn and Flitwick would be deep in discussion over how to repair the water filtration system. The rafters above them would still be broken, and if anyone looked up, they could probably see an owl or two flying in and out of the room, completely unhindered.

Draco closed his eyes, trying to take comfort in the cool stone at his back. After ten—twenty—who knows how many minutes, the smell of refuse and ash was barely discernible. He'd gotten used to it, his brain telling his nostrils that it was healthy air, explicitly made for breathing, and he better inhale and stay alive. For a moment he remained in this dark place, where the only sounds were the wind whistling through the broken windows and cracks in the stone, and the distant sound of voices from the Great Hall. A rumble here and there was likely a statue ambling about the library, searching for pieces of fingers and clipped noses.

Draco groaned. The library. The paintings. His service.

Granger.

He thunked his head against the pillar, as though a knock to his skull might dislodge any remaining thoughts about Granger and leave him free and clear to think about something else. But it only made his head throb, and he instead thought of Granger in her painting, rubbing soot from a Dutch maiden's cheek, her braid coming loose.

 _It didn't matter who you were, what you'd done._

Hadn't it mattered? How could it not? Draco didn't actively care about Granger, but he knew that he'd done some unforgivable things to her. How could she have seen beyond that in order to save him? It had always mattered who _she_ was; it had mattered before he'd ever spoken to her, mattered before he even knew she existed. Could she really be so blindly high-minded that she'd save someone she hated? Draco would never have even considered it.

In fact, if the roles were reversed and he and Greg had miraculously found brooms amidst the burning ruin of the Come-and-go room, Draco had zero doubt in his mind that he would have left the Gryffindors to a fiery demise.

Not unlike the way he'd left Vince.

His throat constricted abruptly, and before the backs of his eyelids could resemble the hot center of a blaze Draco opened his eyes, refocusing on the stone wall across from him. He fought the nausea that swept through his body, the feeling of his throat burning with hot smoke, and took precious gulps of air.

He wasn't supposed to _feel_ like this. He was supposed to move on, to miss Vince, yes, but not with this kind of quivering, uncomfortable feeling. Draco wasn't even sure if he, Crabbe and Goyle had actually been real friends. They certainly weren't friends the way Weasley and Potter were friends, or the way Granger and Potter were friends. Vince and Greg were his mates, but there had always been a barrier between them that made it impossible to discuss anything real. They had each other's backs as much as possible, when it was convenient and prudent, but Draco had never trusted them with his innermost thoughts. Why should he? But it seemed like Vince had trusted _him_. Trusted him enough to follow him into a place that would become his grave.

Draco slowly rubbed his hands together, eyes darting unseeing around the corridor. Maybe somewhere he had missed the point of friendship. It all seemed terribly icky to him, talking about feelings and cuddling up and such. Was that what friendship was supposed to be? He both despised it and longed for it, if only to prove that he didn't need it. He could use it now though, use that strange bond that kept Granger attached to those two idiots she called her friends. Maybe it would lessen this burden if he had someone to share the weight with.

A gust of wind blew into the hollows of the castle, and Draco shivered on the floor. The sun would be going down soon, and at this altitude the wind at night was unbearable. The enchantments that mellowed the weather surrounding the castle were clearly gone. Draco couldn't ever remember it being this windy within the castle, or even in the courtyard. Then again, he'd never been at Hogwarts during the summer. The weather always seemed to warm up towards the end of term, so much that students could roam cloakless around the grounds. The mornings were frigid and dewy but the afternoons saucy and warm. Draco wondered if it got hot in the highlands, the way it did in the Manor's gardens in the summer, with the sun baking the gravel and searing the clipped hedges, reflecting off marble and bronze as if it were silver.

The heat of summer seemed like such a strange contrast to his purpose here. Summer was a time for vacations and leisure, where he would wait for his parents to take him somewhere, excited right up until he inevitably realized that it wasn't going to be a trip of sightseeing, but a trip of dinner parties and boredom. The thought of being somewhere during the summer without the obligation of his family seemed oddly freeing despite the circumstances.

Draco briefly wondered what Granger did over summers. Did her parents take her on holiday? Did they go to the same places? He imagined Granger walking slowly through art galleries in Paris, clutching a little pamphlet about Chevalier. If she looked at ' _Coeurs après la guerre,'_ would she feel the same sense of mystery and sadness? Or did something about her muggle upbringing change the way she viewed things, and made it impossible for them to see eye to eye?

He'd always judged her for being muggleborn, but it occurred to him that he didn't actually know what being muggleborn _meant_. He'd learned over time that the horror stories about muggleborns—that they were hiding odd sicknesses and deforming maladies under their strange clothes—were just tales designed to scare children. So what was it that made her different from him?

She seemed so odd to him, so much _less_ than him. So much that even now he wasn't truly prioritizing bringing her back.

But if he was honest, he _never_ tried. Not when his life depended on it, not even when his _family_ depended on it.

He hadn't tried to catch the secret dueling club in fifth year, hadn't tried to best Potter in potions in sixth, and hadn't really been trying to kill Dumbledore. He always looked for shortcuts and easy paths, the way his father did. As a puppetmaster, he could remain in the shadows, clutching the strings and maneuvering his cronies as he saw fit. He'd never thought that he would soon have to be the one dancing on a stage, performing for the watchful eyes of a true puppetmaster in order to deflect involvement.

Draco jolted as a sudden scuffing of trainers against stone a few paces away caught his attention. He stared straight ahead, cursing the flicker of fear that sometimes beset him whenever someone approached him these days, and cast a deliberate glance to his right.

Standing in the middle of the corridor was a boy he'd know anywhere, a boy who had altered the course of his life in ways he would probably never understand. Even now, with him standing there, his hand shoved in his jeans pocket and shirt two sizes too big on his bony frame, Draco could feel something like a paradigm shift not a few steps away, hovering on the edges of their space.

"Scarhead," he greeted, closing his eyes and leaning back against his pillar.

"Community service is really doing a number on you, Malfoy," Potter responded.

"No more than the War," he muttered back.

Harry Potter stepped forward then, closing the distance and stopping above Draco's sitting position. Draco didn't move.

"Let me guess," Draco began, head lolling to the side. "You're here to see the mudblood."

And that word left a strange taste in his mouth, as though it wasn't his word to say anymore, it had no power and no purpose beyond the comfort of a time long passed, but Draco was not in the habit of retracting his words. He paused, then let it hang.

Potter shook his head, jaw working.

Good. He'd pissed off the other boy and he'd be on his way now, leaving Draco to brood on the floor.

Harry Potter was halfway down the corridor already by the echoing sounds of his footsteps. But then he stopped, and some dark part of Draco groaned in petty annoyance. Couldn't Potter see that he wanted to be alone?

He sat in the silence and waited.

"I really hope you were worth it," Potter muttered finally.

And Draco couldn't find a retort for that, not when his throat had closed up all over again and he felt overcome with shame and guilt, of self-loathing questions of never getting things right, never seeing the bigger picture, always missing something that was obvious to everyone else but never to him.

He ducked his head instead, ears burning under Potter's basilisk-like stare. It would take him a long time to realize that Potter wasn't staring; he was already gone.

* * *

Hermione sighed, breathing in the still air of the sitting room. Adelaide was talking with Sir Galahad, sitting at her vanity as Galahad updated her on the happenings of the past few weeks. Hermione looked on from her vantage point on the floor, thankful that Adelaide had finally released her in favor of chatting with the dashing knight. From this perspective, the room looked ten times taller than it did from the vanity. The windows stretched far above her, the curtains billowing out over her head and revealing slivers of unfiltered light from the painted world beyond.

With Malfoy gone and the painted figures leaving her be, she was left with muddled thoughts. Her original carefully thought-out plan of how she'd engage with Malfoy was now nothing but refuse in her hands. Before, she'd attempted to be strategic about how she dealt with him, not biting the bait he threw at her, doing her best to rein in impulses to argue with him, trying to be cordial in the hopes that he would reflect that cordiality back at her… but he was completely unreceptive. If anything, he was too trapped in his own world, his own thoughts, and hadn't stepped out of himself long enough to see any other side.

In the moment when she had smacked him on the back of the head with that reminder— _it didn't matter who you were_ —she'd been trying to get through to him. Her message had been, 'cut the bullshit, Malfoy, and do something because it's the right thing to do.' Nothing was ever right and wrong with him; everything was a grey bog that he could cross without remorse. It was all a crude game of chicken. How far was too far? He could sink lower and lower until he was swallowed, and even then fight the current with indignant huffs about people being _too sensitive_ or needing to _not take it so seriously_. He seemed incapable of true, authentic, real judgement.

Despite this, Hermione was hopeful. Hopeful because she had seen it in him, no more than a spark, that he knew what he should do. It manifested as reluctance and fear and sometimes, anger, but it was there. He'd been so cross with her for rescuing Adelaide— _have you gone completely mad?!_ he'd yelled at her—but it was the way one yelled at a child who tumbled without a helmet, where real injury was at stake, real life-altering and damning consequence, and it was such a relief that she was safe but dammit, _never_ do something like that again. He wasn't legitimately angry at her for saving someone—not even he could be that apathetic—but angry for what could have happened.

He'd been _scared_ for her.

Which implied at least a non-zero amount of caring for her wellbeing.

But she knew why: his breed of caring was the way one cared for a sibling they don't particularly like but need to care for or risk the wrath of authority. The condescension made her irate. Did he know who she was, what she'd done? She'd done worse with less resources before, and that hadn't stopped her. The thought of him patronizing her with questions about her judgement made her want to hit him over the head with another doozy— _you're one to bloody talk!_

The time for being angry at him was done however, because the way in which she'd delivered it had been out of line. They hadn't yet spoken about the War, but it was clearly an out-of-bounds topic.

Hermione couldn't help but feel like she'd broken some unwritten rule, bringing up the battle, bringing their attention to the awful things they'd done or witnessed within their academic home. It was almost a low blow, digging up raw feelings of a time not so far in the past, where they had acted on impulse and adrenaline and fear and the primal urge to survive. The castle she had watched crumble was still in the same ruin. She wanted to count the days since, but it could have been yesterday or a millennia ago, time was irrelevant, because the pain was always there, floating just beneath the surface, and did not abate or wear off like she'd read about. No, it waited until it was absolutely quiet, and then it blindsided her and filled her with that sense of weightless dread in that empty, airless place where up was down and down was sideways and the sky wasn't a sky but just black nothingness, swallowing everything.

She didn't wish that pain on anyone, not even Draco Malfoy, and by opening that wound that had only just started to scab over she was actively thrusting him into that dead water that even he must have been spending most of his waking life trying to avoid. They all were. She wasn't blind—she could see it on his face before he'd turned away—eyes glazed over with fear, blood leaving his complexion, and for a moment before he bolted she saw the flames of the Room of Requirement in his eyes. It had been in hers as well. If she even so much as brushed against that memory she could smell the burning flesh and ash.

Hermione sighed and listened to her companions; Galahad was alternating between elation and baffled disbelief as Adelaide simpered. Hermione took comfort in their banter, wishing for the simplicity of their existence. They knew of the War and history and everything that had happened within the school for the past few hundred years, but the pain wasn't etched into their beings. They couldn't feel this like Hermione could, like Ron could, like Harry could. Some pain could only be retained in a soul.

As she let go of her thoughts, Hermione heard movement near the entrance of the library, easily discernible from the other noises, as she'd spent days waiting for those sounds before, the sounds of Draco coming in to continue working.

If it was him, however, she wasn't ready yet. The guilt of what she'd said was just in the back of her throat, stopping any excuses or pleasantries from escaping without shame. It didn't matter if he deserved this or that, or if her anger was justified or not. Some topics weren't fair game.

Whoever it was wasn't taking their time however. The strides were unburdened, purposeful, and Hermione would have waited longer if the sudden gasps of the paintings didn't draw her attention to the suspended frame.

Standing between a tower of books and a leaning stack of gilded frames was none other than Harry Potter.

Hermione stood immediately, elation elevating her, but as she made to rush to the frame a great sadness overtook her. She wanted nothing more than to fling herself at him and hold him and make him tell her that it was going to be okay, but it wasn't possible. They were separated by only a few paces, but functionally they were a world apart.

"Hermione?" he asked.

Her throat closed. And there was really no preventing it, she was just overcome with his familiarity and the sadness of not being able to properly connect with him, tousle his hair, swat at him, check to see how his scars were healing.

"Oh Harry," she managed, then stopped talking. Anything more and it would be just sobs.

He was looking at her like she was already lost, and as tears escaped over her cheeks she realized how it must look—she in utter despair, standing in the corner of a painting, hanging on a crumbling wall of her most beloved room in all of Hogwarts. It was pitiful.

She collected herself and tried, "I… I know how this must look."

"It looks _awful_ , yeah," he replied, lips curling in a sad smile. "I hoped it was just Ron's terrible handwriting, but you really are inside a painting." Harry stared at the wall, then walked forward until he was right in front of the painting.

Hermione stepped closer, and Adelaide moved aside silently, departing to stand next to the fur stole lady.

As Hermione stopped at the now unoccupied vanity, Harry reached forward and hovered a finger over the paint.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Hermione murmured.

"I thought you'd say that."

"We're figuring it out, it shouldn't be long now."

"I'm sure you are, just...urgh, I'm so sorry," he put forth, shaking his head.

She swallowed. "It's okay, Harry. It wasn't you."

There was a heavy silence then and a dark question that she knew was coming, she could already see it forming in his eyes.

Harry leveled her with a look and asked, "Did Malfoy do this to you?"

And she was conflicted, because the simple answer was _yes, yes yes yes._ Yes, he'd done it and he didn't care and wasn't really trying to fix it. He wasn't even helping _her_ fix it. But some unfathomable thing held her back, filled her with confusion and doubt. He'd done it, but what did she gain from rallying her friends against him? Was that retribution? Did she want an eye for an eye? Revenge was cheap, and she knew enough about herself to know that when that satisfying burst of flavor was tasted, the juice really wasn't worth the squeeze. She still had to work with Malfoy to break free, with or without a proper flogging from her friends.

"Not on purpose," she answered quietly.

"Prat, I could kill him," Harry grumbled immediately, rubbing his face. "I saw him in the corridor, just sitting there like he had nothing better to do."

"Oh, well… I may have… shouted at him a bit," Hermione sighed. "But he disappeared right after, so…"

Harry shook his head, stepping back. He seemed at a loss.

"If it helps, I think I've figured out what happened," Hermione tried. "I just need to figure out how to get back. I may need to… make a new charm."

"God, make a new charm," Harry sighed. "That will take weeks, at least."

"Don't forget who you're talking to," she replied, trying for a little self-indulgent humor for both their sakes.

"I haven't forgotten. If there is one person in this castle who could figure it out, it's you."

She stared at him, and was overcome by her usual defense mechanism—blanketing her emotions with logic, latching onto academia for the sake of avoiding a difficult topic. Unfortunately the thought of more research, of proving out the theories in the back of her mind, left her too close to those feelings of despair.

She was done scratching that raw part of her. And so she engaged Harry in mundane chatter—how was the Ministry looking? Did they find anything else in Malfoy Manor? Was he coming back to take his N.E.W.T.s? Apparently yes, but only for Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Charms. She didn't need to ask, she already knew they were the required ones to be admitted into Auror Bootcamp, the first step to eventually becoming a field auror.

"I'm glad you're trying to do it properly," Hermione mused. "I heard they wanted to recruit you right away."

Harry shrugged, leaning back against the strong oak table that was typically Draco's reading spot. It was odd to see Harry occupying Draco's space, and how differently the library felt with him there. It's was almost as if the very light was different. "I want to make sure I'm getting the full training. Everything I've learned has been either haphazardly self-taught or pieced together from classes, and I know I'm missing stuff. I want to make sure I can keep up."

"You've seen more action than a lot of them."

Harry shook his head, eyes becoming distant. "Not anymore."

They were getting close to that place, the one she and Ron and Harry and everyone was always trying to avoid, and so Hermione quickly followed, "When are you coming back? Are you here to stay and help?"

Harry shook his head. "I've come with the aurors who are taking care of the Death Eater remains in the acromantula lair. I had… some problems being in the forest," he admitted, eyes downcast. "I think it was too soon."

Hermione swallowed. She couldn't imagine what it was like to revisit a place where she had died. Even thinking of it made her short of breath.

"But they're there now. Cleaning everything up, identifying… you know."

"How does the castle look? From the outside?"

"I mean… oh, I guess you haven't seen it," Harry trailed off. "It's better, almost there. One of the towers is still missing, and McGonagall mentioned something about the dungeons flooding… but I think we can do it. I'm still helping the aurors tie up loose ends, but I should be back soon to help with the school."

Hermione talked with Harry for hours it seemed, filling him in on everything from the way in which she was thinking of redesigning the library to the research she was doing on enchanted art. It was clear that Harry wasn't particularly interested in enchanted art—his life probably hadn't afforded him an opportunity to appreciate something like art—but he indulged her all the same, talking through her theories.

"So you think the paintings are something similar to memories?"

Hermione nodded. "Of the theories I have, that one now seems the most likely. I do think that this place is created, but I don't think it exists somewhere in the world. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered—where would these places exist? Could they be found on their own? With space-altering magic and disillusionment, the spaces still exist in a real place. You can find the Hogwarts Express platform if you discover the place it exists. But because the beach painting doesn't support magic—and not in the way Azkaban represses magic, but in a way where magic doesn't seem to exist—I feel like it couldn't exist in the known world. It's not a real place."

"Not a real place," Harry echoed. "Yeah, it sounds like a memory to me. In the memory of Voldemort as a kid, we were following a young Dumbledore up a set of stairs. I could step, lean on the railing, everything. I could even pick up a book to get a closer look at it. But I couldn't touch Riddle. He was like smoke."

"But what if it's not a real memory? For instance, if magic doesn't exist on the beach, then it can't really be a memory."

"Well, think about it," Harry said. "Not every memory I've seen was true. I've seen some that were tampered with, which wouldn't make them memories at all."

"So a memory… doesn't have to be real," Hermione murmured in astonishment.

"No. I guess you could pull anything out of your head if you wanted to, whether it happened or not."

"Pull anything... like, a dream, or a story, or..."

"A lie."

"Or... a fantasy."

Harry nodded, and Hermione's head perked up, her eyebrows furrowing with a newfound determination.

* * *

The hours went by, one after another, until the portrait of the library was bathed in the deep blue light of an ascending moon. Hermione didn't want to think that she'd been waiting for Malfoy to return, as she hardly expected him to, but she couldn't help but feel disappointed somehow. He'd put off talking to her, or even working on the collection, in favor of brooding somewhere. She shouldn't have hoped for anything more, really.

The peace and quiet, minus the chatter of the reunited figures, should have given Hermione plenty of space to think, but she felt oddly distracted and uninspired. The books hovering in front of the beach didn't seem as helpful to her anymore, not with all the new information she'd discerned from both her talk with Harry and her trip to the bottom of the painting. Yes, the paintings seemed to be self-contained spaces to some extent, where existence was defined within the confines of a study, or a beach, a garden, or a chamber. But there was something else that existed outside of this defined space, something that was—for lack of a better word— _undefined_. Something that the artist had left room for, but did not conceive of. It lacked both gravity and light, not unlike that space within Hermione's own mind that was the embodiment of her fear. But objects could exist there just as they existed within the scenes themselves, only lacking the laws of physics to pull them down.

It had been terrifying there, to be sure, but the steady clench of the rope around her middle and the rough feel of it in her hand was enough to make Hermione remember that she wasn't lost, there was a place to go back to. And when she'd grasped at the mound of fabric that had proved itself to be a sobbing maiden, the hope and relief had drowned out anything else.

Hermione stood and stretched, reaching up towards the ceiling with roughened hands. The rope had scraped her skin, so much that Adelaide had fussed over her hands that afternoon, dabbing them with pretty handkerchiefs that had likely never touched blood before.

With the shift of her clothing over her tired bones, Hermione realized just how dingy she was. Her shirt was close to ruined now from the chewed collar and wrinkled fabric saturated with sand and dirt. Her careless braid—an attempt to tame her hair that had been thoroughly ravaged by seawater on several occasions—was so matted that she couldn't see the details of the weave anymore. It might as well be the rope she'd held onto hours before.

Hermione dropped her arms, took a breath, and stepped over the threshold to the next painting. As she moved between worlds, she kept her mind level, ignoring the pulls of each scene as she passed by sleeping figures, slumped over in their ornate chairs. At last she came upon the garden painting, the glittering fountain in the center. Beside it the large cheetah was lounging, head resting over its fuzzy paws, eyes closed.

Hermione sighed slowly as the cheetah's ears twitched, and approached cautiously, already feeling her concentration slipping. This painting was going to be a tricky one; while she might have liked to enjoy the spattering of sunshine and the crisp afternoon air, the haze made it hard to focus.

The cheetah suddenly looked up in alarm, her ears flat to her head, diamond eyes trained on Hermione. The witch stopped, her trainers chafing the cobblestone.

The very last thing Hermione wanted right now was to get attacked by a wild animal, especially one who was known for being very fast. She could see the muscles on the cheetah's back as the animal rose and stepped forward slowly. It was the kind of step that one makes towards prey they're trying not to startle, though Hermione didn't know if it was the quiet-hunter sort of stalking or the quietly-moving-away kind. She hoped it was the latter.

The big cat was inches away, its breath tickling Hermione's steadying hand.

Finally, the cheetah pushed its face into Hermione's palm, and she sighed in relief, her muscles relaxing, as she knew this pose; Crookshanks always took a sniff of her hand and then pushed his furry head into her palm to signal that he wanted attention.

She stroked and ruffled the cheetah's soft fur eagerly.

"Aw... you're just a big kitty, aren't you?" she cooed.

The large cat grazed her arm in affirmation, stepping past her to brush against her legs, and Hermione buckled a little under the cat's weight.

She relaxed, letting the strange lightheadedness of the painting calm her anxiety, and sat at the fountain, the cat's tail curling around her legs.

Hermione cast a quick glance towards the library painting, then began to remove her clothes.

Just dipping a foot into the cool fountain water was relieving, so much that she could see clouds of dusky filth pooling where she stepped. When her outfit was fully removed and her skin exposed, Hermione sank into the pristine water with a sigh.

She was reminded of the first shower she'd taken after the battle, the hot water melting the grime and soot away, black sludge of foam swirling across the porcelain and down the drain. Digging grit out of the crevasses of her body, from under her nails, between her fingers, even from the cavities of her nose. Discovering scrapes and cuts suddenly as they burned from the soap, puckering as they reopened. That evening, with everyone freshly showered, skin raw and souls on fire, they'd sat down to eat in the ruin of the Great Hall: aurors and teachers, students and former students, centaurs, parents, guardians, and even elves. They sat together like The Last Supper, solemnly passing plates left and right. The food had been heavenly, too decadent for the mood of the day. They'd eaten roasted potatoes crisped with herbs, and succulent lamb soaked in butter and red sauce. Their pudding had been a choice between chimera's pie—a pie of figs, apples, and hot ginger—or a victoria sandwich cake, the jam glinting red like rubies. Hermione hadn't eaten so much in her entire life.

That shower, that felt like all the filth and guilt and fear was washing away, was the cleanest she'd felt in months.

She couldn't be as thorough now, with no soap or scrubber to work with, but she found the same sensation of cleansing as the water slipped over her skin and the sand and sweat disappeared into the fountain.

"Sweetheart, would you like something else to wear? While you're here?" someone asked.

Hermione rubbed her arms thoughtfully. Donning her old clothing seemed almost repulsive, putting her clean skin into the stiff and gritty shirt, sweat yellowing the pits and hem crinkled with sand. _Scourgify_ could only do so much. However, she couldn't imagine wearing the stuffy and ornate robes that many of the painted figures were wearing, nor the flowing velvet and silks of the allegorical paintings. That said, sitting in her pleated skirt was annoying—why she had worn the dumb thing to clean the library was completely unknown to her. A set of trousers or a longer skirt would have been better.

"Yes, that would be alright, at least for a bit," Hermione answered.

The Dutch maiden appeared out of the black void, hands clasped and eyes bright. She picked up Hermione's discarded clothing and dunked it into the fountain as Hermione tried her best to scrub the filth from her body.

"I've watched fashion come and go over the years," Adelaide was saying. "I've never understood why girls your age choose to wear such drab clothing. In my time, everyone dressed to impress, even those with little galleons to their name."

"Clothes like mine are more economical," Hermione put forth absently, trying to undo her braid as she knelt in the fountain water. "I can't be wearing heavy dresses and expensive fabrics if I need to study, or work."

"There is nothing wrong with practicality, young Addy," the alchemist chimed in from a painting or two down, and the king and queen he was entertaining murmured questioningly.

"Practicality has kept me alive up until now," Hermione continued, finally getting her braid undone. She ignored Adelaide's disapproving gasp at her hair; she knew what her hair looked like when it was left in a braid for too long. With all of the curl pulled out and reformed into artificial strands, she probably looked like scruffy Medusa.

"Hermione… angel, we must do something about your hair," Adelaide sniffed.

"I'm doing something about it right now," Hermione retorted, trying to comb her fingers through it with little success.

That wasn't nearly satisfying enough for the young maiden, and a few minutes later she'd hung Hermione's clothing to dry and came at her with a variety of combs, potions, and suspicious-looking vials.

"No perfume, please," Hermione warned, ducking away.

"It's not perfume, love, it's a potion for curly hair. How do you think I get mine like this?" Adelaide preened for a moment, lifting beautiful tresses the color of peanut butter off her shoulder.

"You were painted like that," Hermione grumbled, though she couldn't help but look longingly at Adelaide's curls. They were nothing like Hermione's—soft and defined, they looked as silky as the velvet resting over her breasts.

Adelaide ignored the comment and said, "You musn't comb out your hair when it's dry, love. It ruins the curl. Trust me—you'll end up with a head full of fur."

Her statement had some truth—Hermione's hair did usually resemble a long lion's mane. She had tried numerous things over the years to get it to lie flat—straightening it, braiding it and releasing it, brushing it into a ponytail—but they only seemed to make it worse.

"It's… in need of help, darling. When was the last time you received a haircut?"

Hermione snorted indelicately, sensing more incoming suggestions about her hair that would surely irritate her. "My mum used to cut it over the summer, but she hasn't in a few years."

Adelaide thought for a moment and said, "Well, we must do something to it—"

Hermione shook her head and shooed her away. "I'd like to finish washing first, at least."

Adelaide smiled, looking excited by the lack of a firm 'no', and turned on the fountain's edge to retrieve a bundle of fabric.

"Here, please wear this dress. Don't worry, it isn't expensive, it's just a little something to cover up in until your clothing dries. The spell will take another twenty minutes to finish drying your rags at least."

Hermione grimaced. "Great. I'll come by once I'm done."

Adelaide swished away and Hermione finished washing in peace. The cheetah paced around the fountain, looking for a different spot of cobblestone to rest on. She settled on a bright spot near Hermione, where the sun filtered from between the trees and baked the stone.

After some time—Hermione hadn't done the best job, but the tips of her fingers were beginning to pucker—she stood from the knee-deep water and reached for her wand. A quick vanishing spell took the cool droplets off her skin, and she unfolded the mass of silk and cotton on the fountain's edge.

After several minutes of turning the fabric this way and that, Hermione gave her best guess at how it went on and slipped the ornate dress over her head. It wasn't as ostentatious as Adelaide's dress, and not nearly as much as that of the queen in the other painting, but it was still fancier than anything Hermione had ever worn. Even her Yule Ball dress hadn't felt this formal.

She walked slowly back to Adelaide, traversing the beach quickly, sidestepping the sleeping duchess, and coming to sit at Adelaide's vanity.

They worked through the tangle of Hermione's mane together, pulling wide combs through her sopping hair until it was easy enough to get her fingers through, slick to her head and mostly free of sand.

"Now, my love, let it dry just like this. It will preserve the curl."

"No, it gets all fuzzy in the front and not in the back, and I have to brush it out—"

"Trust me, angel, this will work. I've given you some of the potion to help with the fuzz. It should be better in the morning."

Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes; she didn't like being fussed over by other girls telling her how to augment her appearance. She'd long since let go of those kinds of thoughts, the kinds of insecurities that had her wishing for straight hair or no freckles or a more balanced figure. She'd studied transfiguration a little harder than was necessary during the body-alteration unit, as much of her class had, and had tried to get rid of the moles under her jaw, make her nose a little less round, and various other experiments that either went poorly or had little effect. It had been a chore with little payoff, and after a while she'd given up; she had more important things to worry about.

Despite this, it was nice to be taken care of for the first time since she'd become trapped; she suspected that this was Adelaide's way of thanking her for the rescue. Hermione couldn't imagine what it must have been like to be floating in total darkness and despair for weeks. She'd have to try to rescue more of the missing painted figures while she was trapped, both to bring them to safety and to understand more about the true structure of the paintings.

Hermione reached up and touched her drying hair, and her fingers were quickly swiped away.

"Don't touch it, angel. Just shake your head occasionally, and let it dry..." Adelaide dug her fingers into Hermione's scalp and shook, as if to ruffle her hair, but instead just unstuck her curls from her scalp. "As for brushing, don't take a brush to your hair unless you want a feather duster for a head. Use your fingers if you can."

"Okay," Hermione replied quietly.

With clean skin, washed hair, and a fresh set of clothes, Hermione felt renewed with determination. She sat upon the velvet sofa behind the vanity and spread out her notes, resolving to read through them until sleep claimed her for the night.

* * *

As usual, Draco awoke with a start.

He'd dreamt endlessly of burning books and flying through an inferno, weaving in and out of fiery arches, going in circles; every turn led to more heat, more rings of fire swirling around him. Sometimes the flames were sprouting from what he was so sure was the ceiling, but a quick turn would orient the ground above his head. Other times Harry Potter himself was made of fire, scorching Draco's arms as he held on.

He sighed irritably, placing a hand over his heart in an attempt to stall its rapid beating. The light filtering through the windows was the glowing purple of early morning among the highlands in the summer, when the sun barely dipped below the horizon before it seemed to be rising again. In the winter it was awful: trudging to classes in eerie darkness, from the dungeons too no doubt, and then the last class wouldn't let out until the sun had already descended behind the hills and the torches lining the walls were lit in an artificial orange glow.

In the summer, and not within the dungeons, it would normally have felt like a blessing. Gorgeous weather, early and late sunshine every day, warm nights where a walk about the courtyard after cramming for end-of-year exams felt that much more rewarding. Despite this Draco detected a sense of gloom within the confines of the castle this morning.

He'd fallen asleep in his hideout again; he hadn't even made it to the couch in Professor Flitwick's old office. Groaning, he rolled his neck, sitting up and letting charcoal sticks and parchment roll off his stomach. Without the other Slytherins or his father to breathe down his neck, he didn't much care about how scruffy or unkempt he looked, or about keeping his things in order. With no housemates to snicker at him or glance at his belongings with calculating eyes, he was getting lazy, disorganized. Despite not trusting the company of the other students—mostly Ravenclaws, at least—he knew they wouldn't try anything. It was the one thing he appreciated about the other houses: they were too 'honorable' to stoop to the same level as Slytherins.

He sat up, stretched, and made his way to the Prefect's bathroom for an early wash.

Once in the library with a freshly scrubbed face and brushed teeth, he looked around at the dismal, yet calm, scene. The painted figures were still sleeping, light snores and heavy breathing joining the sounds of the early morning breeze. The Dutch maiden, her dress no longer disheveled, was asleep at her vanity, breathing slowly.

Draco stepped forward, narrowing his eyes at the painting. Granger had fallen asleep upon the ornate velvet sofa within; she was sleeping with her head cradled in her arm, eyelashes feathery and lips parted. She was wearing a dress of deep green silk over a cotton underdress, not nearly as ornate as the Dutch maiden's but still wildly uncharacteristic of the practical Gryffindor. Draco eyed it, subconsciously appreciating the way the light illuminated and reflected off of the fabric. It was moments like these that Draco felt like a voyeur on the periphery of history, viewing the same luscious light that had inspired painters for a millennia. He'd stare at light from a hazy window reflecting on silk, or a candlelight dancing in the refractions of a wine bottle... even the illuminated grapes and velvety flowers in the morning glow from the Great Hall's rafters. Despite everything, there was so much beauty in the world to appreciate.

Draco's eyes lingered on the scene before him. Granger's hair wasn't braided anymore, and wasn't the typical large, fluffy mass that looked like a dandelion weed. Instead, her hair was in tight curls, as though she'd actually conditioned it. With her lounging on the velvet sofa, _A History of Magic_ still open on the table beside her and her clothing rumpled in the soft light, the effect was that of a post-renaissance story.

Granger herself looked like painted figure, despite the modern haircut and freckles, despite the scrape on her arm that had been there even since before she'd become trapped.

A surge of inspiration passed over Draco, and he glanced at the unfinished portrait of a swotty muggleborn leaning against the far side of the library.

If he could repaint the portrait now, he'd reconsider the pose; lounging on a sofa while reading a book seemed closer to what Granger might actually do… he turned back to the sleeping girl on the couch. It was a quietly tranquil scene, filling Draco with the same sense of calm he got from looking at the work of Dutch masters from the 1600s. Still, soft, and bright. If her arm was just a little to the left, she'd be exhibiting the perfect pose.

Then he realized he was staring, and he cleared his throat and turned away, moving towards the stack of books.

"Going to apologize?"

He stopped; that was the raspy drone of the alchemist, probably shaking his quivering jowls at Draco in distaste as usual. Draco ignored the painting, instead taking stock of where he had left off in his organization of the books and what he needed to do next.

"If you're going to do something, you might as well give it your all," the alchemist said.

Draco's jaw worked. "And how do you know I haven't been?"

"You don't even _listen_ to her," he replied, closing his spyglass with a snap for emphasis. The cheetah's ears twitched in the next painting.

"I don't _have_ to listen to her," Draco retorted. "All she does is whine and—urgh, she's so unbearable when she thinks she knows everything—"

"Boy," the alchemist warned, "Nothing but action will truly advance your situation. Do you still wish to remain in stasis?"

The other paintings were stirring, and Draco didn't want them to harass him about Granger either.

"I don't," he ground out. "I just want to go home."

"Home," the alchemist scoffed. "You mean the Dark Lord's Dungeon."

Draco breathed out through his nose. It wasn't the first time he'd heard the name. "Yes."

"Home is where you feel safest," the man said, setting down his spyglass and ruffling the fur of the Maltese puppy as she sleepily rolled over. "Does your manor still qualify? After everything?"

' _What do you know about it?!'_ Draco wanted to yell. But the other paintings were groaning, and Granger's eyelashes were fluttering in the filtered light.

Draco took a step back as Hermione's speckled honey eyes opened, her arm drifting to the left absently.

And without looking back, he backed out of the space, sidestepping the towers of books, cursing his heart as it thumped, and he took off down the corridor.

His long strides slowed down as he approached the doors to the Great Hall, and Draco was embarrassed to realize that his heart was beating heavily in his chest. He stopped, heaving as his lungs filled with more of the disgusting air, and a sudden coughing fit sent a plume of dust cascading across the corridor. He found himself becoming angry about it—bloody Gryffindors, weren't they cleaning _anything?_ The house-elves in the Manor would have had this place spotless already. What were the Hogwarts house-elves _doing?_

Despite the momentary diversion, Draco couldn't hide from why he was really angry. He sighed through his nostrils, leaning against the heavy door, the grain catching the fibers of his shirt. This was ridiculous. Why couldn't he just ignore her? Why did she have to be all self-righteous, making him feel like this?

He hated feeling like he'd done something wrong, like just by existing he was making a mess of everything. It was Granger who had brought up the Come-and-go Room. How could she incite those feelings in him so easily? He'd never used to care about what those Gryffindors thought.

"Are you going in, or are you just going to stand there?"

Draco cast an angry look behind him. Hannah Abbot was there, her arms crossed over her chest in a manner that seemed more self-protective than haughty. The mark on her forehead was fading into a sickly yellow color, just visible beneath her blonde fringe.

Draco bowed his head, jaw working as he pushed opened the doors, and the echoing sounds of students shuffling to the benches and dragging plates across the tables filled the room. Draco took his usual place at the Ravenclaw table, more than four seats away from anyone, and begin to select his food.

An hour later, when everyone had come and gone from the Great Hall and it would surely look suspicious if he continued to linger there, Draco stood and made his way back to the library. Past the chipped archway, the largest paintings were still against the sidewall, unfathomably tall, reaching toward the vaulted ceiling. The rest of the dirty paintings were leaning against the wall, haphazardly categorized in size order, right down to the smallest portraits on the floor. The zigzagging path through the mess looked especially treacherous, weaving in-between tall stacks of swaying books.

Draco took a breath and edged through the narrow valley, carefully sliding between the towers, resting his hand on the tops of ones he wasn't sure he could bypass without disaster.

When he finally reached the back wall, the line of clean paintings hanging edge to edge, he stopped.

The Dutch maiden and the knight were gossiping happily, trading boringly sweet banter that made Draco want to roll his eyes contemptuously. Even the ornery duchess, with her high hair and perpetually judgmental brow, was listening to them, huffing in annoyance but otherwise quiet. The alchemist was sitting with the court in their throne-room scene, exchanging bows and light chatter; the cheetah was still lounging by her fountain, rolled on her side, her creamy underbelly facing the sun.

Granger was seated on the same sofa she'd been sleeping on before, but now she was cross-legged and surrounded by parchment. She was no longer wearing the green dress, but her old clothes looked substantially cleaner and less rumpled than before. He could even make out the individual pleats in her skirt again. She was idly twirling a tight curl, letting it slide between her fingers and bounce back before she pinched it again and again.

Even just looking at her made his throat constrict—those eyes that seemed strangely intense, the furrow to her brow, the moles moving under her jaw as she breathed. He'd seen her eyes like that before—red-rimmed and speckled like amber—and he didn't want to remember. That moment had been his downfall, the thing that had ruined any possibility of a simple, heads-down penance.

He realized with a start that she was staring back at him now, quill at rest in her hand. She was giving him that wide-eyed look she sometimes wore when she was waiting for him to say something. Mostly she fixed him with a narrow-eyed, expectant glare whenever he was about to speak, but occasionally he'd catch her off-guard, and her expression would be perfectly blank, eyes wide and curious like a wild deer, unsure of what to think about an unexpected visitor crunching in the underbrush.

The chatter faded out as he stood there, and Adelaide looked between the pair before quietly standing from her vanity and crossing the threshold into the next portrait.

Hermione stepped forward, her expression uncertain.

Silently, Draco pulled back his oak chair and sat, adjusting his feet as he leaned back.

In a brief moment of detachment, Draco couldn't help but think, they must look like a right pair of weirdos, him with his chair facing the wall, Granger standing perfectly still behind the vanity. She could have been an unenchanted painting, serene and immobilized, frozen in time.

Draco sighed irritably, rubbing his face. His hair fell limply over his fingers, light petals of hair over blackened skin. Perhaps his fingers were dirty from cleaning, or perhaps from touching the doors to the Great Hall—the doors and walls were strangely grimey after all the smoke—or perhaps he'd touched some nasty books. Either way, his fingers were so ashy they were the same color as the walls surrounding them.

Unable to take the anticipation anymore, Hermione started, "Look, I—"

Draco held up his hand, silencing her immediately. It was clear—he didn't want her to apologize, and certainly didn't want her to ask him for one. Hermione shifted, indignation, surprise, and relief colliding in her body.

"Tell me about your theories," he said.

His gaze was prospecting for something, his eyes clear and focused.

Hermione stared at him. It was too much to go from the heights of academic enlightenment to the bottomless pit his harsh words constantly shoved her into, where one moment he had nothing to offer but apathy and disdain, and the next he was quietly open, a calm after the storm, helping her process ideas. The thrash made her head spin. This was the most time they had ever spent together and it was starting to show. In small doses Malfoy was tolerable and interactions with him were annoying, yes, but uneventful in the grand scheme of her life. Now their relationship colored everything. His strange pendulum swings between quietly affronted and aggressively menacing made for unstable working conditions. Why was he like this? Why couldn't he just be serious about the work and forget the other stuff, at least until they were on an even keel once more? As much as Hermione wanted to think she could get around his odd mood swings by ignoring his invitations to argue, it was next to impossible when he was berating her directly.

Hermione watched him; Draco was staring at the table, absently rolling a forgotten paintbrush towards himself. It rattled against the uneven oaktop.

Hermione stood, clutching her notes, and stepped over the threshold of the paintings until she was walking along the shoreline of the beach scene. The subtle pulls of each stage helped her dislodge the confusion and irritation that had taken hold, and she welcomed her scholastic concentration back as the eerie sense of helplessness plaguing the beach hovered around her. She took some comfort in the familiar paranoia, and found herself reminded of the nervous anticipation she felt before exams.

"After what happened yesterday, I've been thinking," she murmured, pacing. "I pulled Adelaide from the depths of some space; it was colorless, dark, and the bottom... well, there didn't seem to be one. It was endless... I don't know, Malfoy. I don't think we're just dealing with closed-off places." She stopped, looking back at him, hesitant.

He nodded slowly.

Mildly assured that he wasn't about to rip her apart, she continued, "I have another theory. And—bear with me, because this might sound crazy."

Draco shifted in his seat, and Hermione took a breath.

"So much of magic is trial and error, and it's impossible to know what you're really _doing_ when you cast a spell. For instance, what does ' _obliviate'_ actually do to a person's brain?"

"Ok, I follow," he said.

"So the painting charm, to get it to move... what does the charm actually _do?_ Artists assume that it just makes the painting move, but how do they know for sure?"

"I don't know," Draco replied. "The charm has been around for hundreds of years."

"What if the charm is actually... _creating_ this place? The way... the way you create a false memory?"

"False memory?"

"Yes, a memory that isn't true. It's a lie, so it's not really a memory, but it functions like one."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "How do you know that, Granger?"

"Oh, Harry had one once from Professor—ah, it doesn't matter. In any case, it's possible to alter a memory. And if you do this, the end result is something that isn't a memory—it's just a scene that you made up in your head."

Draco looked skeptical, and Hermione quickly continued, "But it doesn't matter. What matters is the laws of memories, the logic. They operate on their own time, always repeating the same thing over and over. In a memory, you can interact with the environment, but it doesn't change."

Draco nodded slowly, rolling the forgotten paintbrush across the table thoughtfully.

"If we apply the memory logic, this starts to make sense. In here, I can interact with the environment, but it doesn't seem to change it, because it is a fixed thing, a fixed moment divorced from time. Like—it's always sunset in this place," she said, looking over her shoulder at the bands of purple and red stretching infinitely into the distance.

"Okay, okay, I see what you're saying," Draco murmured, absently twirling the brush between his fingers. "So the spell is a way to create a place that feels real, the way a memory feels real. A place you could theoretically walk around in."

"Well, apparently a place you can _actually_ walk around in," she put forth, gesturing around as she paced.

"So you're saying that... you aren't in a painting, you're in a memory?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, I mean, sort of: I'm in both. The painting is housing a memory, _displaying_ it. It's like... if the memory is a film, then the painting would be the television."

"'Film'? Like a—"

"Is this a memory, Malfoy?" she asked. "Were you ever at a beach like this?"

Draco leaned back; how had the discussion come back to him? He cleared his throat. "No, it's not."

"Then what is it? What is this place to you?"

"It's... I mean, I made it up."

"So you've never been to a beach."

"I—what does that have to do with the memory thing?" he asked angrily.

Hermione held up her hands, her notes fluttering in the breeze. "I'm sorry, I was just asking. You're the only artist I can ask about this stuff. So if you made it up, it's not a memory exactly, but it is something that came from your mind."

Draco leaned back, regaining his breath, and said, "So all this time, artists have just been designing really fancy display cases for memories?"

"It would appear so. Since the charm is so complex, I'm guessing it…" Her eyes lit up suddenly, and as he watched her eyebrows rise a sudden thought occurred to him. In fact, it was probably the same one that occurred to Granger.

"Can you get the etymology book?" she asked, breath shallow.

Draco did this unquestioningly, reaching behind him into the stack of art history books and pulling out the linen-clad tome.

"And open it to the—"

"I know, Granger," Draco murmured, flipping through the ancient pages and scanning the text.

When he found the appropriate passage, he stopped, eyes darting back and forth as he read.

"' _Vitae'_ … " he murmured, reading ahead, and went on, "comes from the roots ' _enviriam_ ', evoking changes within the body, and ' _exitae_ '. When used singularly it alludes to a life lived, 'moments that come to pass.' It says here, ' _Vitae_ stimulates the depth of magic that transforms the mind, that channels the thoughts and desires of the caster.' To me that says—"

"Memory charms," Hermione finished.

"That's when used singularly at least… there's a whole section on the breakage and reformation of ' _vitae_ ', when it's broken into ' _vi_ ' like ' _obliviate_ ' or ' _surviviam_ '… this is…"

"I know it's a lot." Hermione sighed.

"It must have something to do with… creating a memory, or at least a feeling," Draco murmured, his brow furrowing.

"That would also explain why the painting has some kind of effect on my mood," Hermione continued, "because if you're creating a memory—or, it's not a true memory, so for the sake of argument lets call it a 'scene'—if you're creating a scene, you're impregnating it with your opinion, your feelings… wow." She stopped. "The spell must pick up on the process. That's why the process is so important… it's classic Pollock."

"Pollock?"

Hermione's chin rose. She'd assumed that Malfoy would forever have the upper hand when talking about artists, but he seemed mostly in the dark about muggle art. "Jackson Pollock. A muggle artist known for his abstract action painting. Basically, he let his art manifest via the _action_ of painting."

"Whoa, whoa. He let his art _create_ itself?" Draco asked incredulously.

Hermione shook her head. "No no, I mean... the process of painting dictates the outcome. The action of painting becomes a catharsis for the artist, and with each layer you can perceive how their mental state changed. And by viewing it as a whole... you can tell how the artist was feeling. What they were thinking."

Draco's stomach dropped as the implications of her statement connected in his mind.

"It's like how when you share a memory directly, you can ingest not just what happened, but _why_ it happened the way it did. You get the thoughts of the person. The emotions. Not just what they saw and heard, but how they _felt._ "

"So what does all of this mean for you?" Draco steamrolled quickly. "So, let's say you're in a memory… a scene. What then?"

Hermione ran a hand through her strangely tight curls, her eyebrows furrowed. A slight static raised frizz off her head.

"I mean... you can't bring someone with you out of a memory..." she mused.

"But you aren't _created_ , you were _born_. So you shouldn't be a part of the 'memory' in that analogy—you should be a viewer. An observer."

Hermione looked vaguely relieved. "I guess you're right... so the question is—how does an observer get out of a memory?"

They looked at each other.

"You reach up with your wand," Hermione whispered, clutching her wand.

Time seemed to stop for a moment as she extended her arm upwards. Breathless, arm extended, Draco watched the point of her wand waver in the air.

Nothing was happening.

"For a second I really thought that was going to work," Draco sighed in frustration, scratching his scalp.

"Wait, wait," she said, lowering her arm. "We're thinking about this all wrong. This is how you escape a _pensieve_. This isn't a pensieve, it's a painting. In a pensieve you can't touch anyone, everything is like smoke, because the only purpose is to view memories, not… interact with them. Pensieves must have different rules... I mean, I can walk _between_ memories here. You can't walk between memories in a pensieve."

"But if you can walk between memories in paintings, they must be connected somehow."

Hermione opened her mouth to retort, then stopped, holding her chin.

"It's not quite right, but—there's something about the space... it's proximity, or something. The charm must interact on a larger scale. Like... every instance of the charm is just a tiny piece of one giant... ecosystem."

"Yes—it has a _link_. Something in the charm establishes a link with objects surrounding it that have been charmed. And objects of the same subject."

Draco nodded. "That must be how you can visit paintings in different locations... there's something in the logic of the charm."

Hermione affirmed, and the warm wind blew through her clothing, carrying the scent of the water with it.

"What parts of the charm are left to research?" she asked absently. "The first part seems to interact with the paint itself. The second part with the scene, or memory. What about the last part?"

"' _Resurgemus_ ,'" Draco quoted, flipping pages. "What's the root?"

Hermione shook her head, pacing down the sand. "I don't know. It's too muddled, it could be anything."

"And it isn't in this book," Draco added as the back cover met the last page with a clap. He heaved the hefty tome aside. "I've got to find the R's."

"I mean, there's the part of the Dimension Charm, but it's rudimentary… ' _reges_ '. It's what they use to get the Chocolate Frogs to move. It's not even close to the painting spell."

Draco nodded absently, pulling a stack of books towards him and checking the spines. Moving the books between different stacks, it was a few minutes before he found the correct one, swiping a finger over the blackened spine to reveal the gilded title. Hermione waited, digging her shoes into the sand and watching the white grains slide over her foot.

"' _Resurgus anime,_ '" Draco said suddenly, finger following a line of text.

"What?"

He read on, silent as his grey eyes darted back and forth over the page.

"The 'Breath of Life' charm," he said finally. "That's the one that's closest. But... I don't understand. It's a _healing_ spell..."

"For resuscitation. I remember," Hermione replied. "So that means that there is potentially some element of healing magic at play... fascinating... yet at the same time, unhelpful."

"This is all such nonsense," Draco grumbled.

"Yeah, this is exactly what I don't like about magic," Hermione sighed. "It's incredibly imprecise. We're all just over here guessing, trying to make things work, without any idea of what we're doing…"

The book slipped forward over Draco's lap as he shook his head.

"I think we need to look into creating memories. There's... there's something there."

He nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it seems like the closest thing right now."

"The question now is, where can we find that information in the library?"

Draco looked behind him at the ruined space, the majority of the books still in uneven stacks. The tomes that did reside on the shelves weren't sorted in any particular way, just haphazardly jammed onto bookcases to preserve floor space.

"Was there even a section about memory charms?"

Hermione rubbed her chin. "No, I think _obliviate_ was just mentioned in one of our textbooks. That was fourth year I believe... Charms... what was that textbook called… it wasn't _Standard Book of Spells, Grade Four_ …"

" _Chadwick's Charms, Volume Two_ ," Draco said. "I remember. There's some in the disused Charms classroom on the fourth floor."

Hermione sighed, relief turning up the corners of her lips; Draco met her gaze, reflecting that relief back at her, the corner of his lips lifting as he exhaled.

For a moment it seemed like nothing else mattered: they had a lead. They were getting closer, the pieces of information and theories falling into place. They always seemed to make real progress when they were actually talking, as if their minds were two halves of a machine that could function separately, but together could create anything, somehow becoming more than a sum of their parts.

The moment seemed disorienting then, and as Draco's smile faded Hermione shook hers away, stepping back from the frame.

"Do you... mind getting the book?" she asked quietly.

"No, I'll... I'll be back," Draco murmured, and stood, leaving Hermione staring after him.

* * *

 _Author's Note (7/25/19) -_ Hey everyone! Drop a review and let me know what you think :)


	7. Viridian

**Chapter Seven: Viridian**

 _"It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly." ~ Claude Monet_

The following day unfolded quickly. Malfoy charmed syllabaries and Charms anthologies for Hermione to search through, then resumed reorganizing and cleaning. Any finished paintings were hung on Hermione's side of the library; from there, she had a vantage point to observe Draco work, and watched the large room transform from a storage shed into an organized city of books. Every book was in a stack, whether that stack was blackened and crispy or oddly pristine, sloppily thrown together or meticulously categorized. Among some of the unearthed books was a slew of previously unseen art history books, the rest of the transfiguration reference guides, and the herbology journals Neville always seemed to want. The neat skyscrapers of books swayed in the afternoon when the wind blew through the hollows of the room.

Malfoy was respelling the second floor now, the large pieces of splintered wood and marled banisters floating and sliding back into place. Parts that were damaged by dark curses remained blackened, and sometimes fell away like ash from a lit cigar. Draco had to pause to painstakingly duplicate and maneuver new pieces to replace them, grumbling about how time-consuming it was to do this without the knowledge or means to do otherwise.

The next set of artworks to be cleaned were propped against the table, starting with a calm, finely-detailed painting of an elderly farmer in a golden field. The frame was splintered in pieces, burnished gold leafing flaking away from the carved wood. Hermione had a thought, then scribbled a note: _do frames serve more than a decorative purpose?_

The large paintings, some taller than the arched library entrance, were all that remained after this next stack, but cleaning these was by far the most daunting task.

Around midday Draco made a low humming noise, causing Hermione to look up. He usually made that sound when he'd found something interesting, and was too buried in his own thoughts to remember that she could hear him. This amused Hermione for a few moments before she said, "What is it?"

Malfoy leaned back from his hunched position over the book, stretching his arms. "The charm really is incomplete. 'Livitriam' shares a common root with charms like _unitriam_ and the Invisible Barrier charm. It likely seals the painting, or contains the world somehow."

"So, by not casting that part, you may have made it possible for something to come out of the painting."

"I also made it possible to trap something there," Draco retorted. "What's your point?"

"Malfoy, don't you see?" Hermione asked. "If you'd completed the charm, I might never be able to get out. But you didn't. This helps us!"

He flipped the book over, closing it with a thump. "I could have also just created a new painting, charmed it, and pulled you out from there."

Hermione's head sank back automatically as she groaned. "Ugh, I _know_ , I'm just pointing out that the act of sealing the painting does something... what else happens when you don't seal it? Does it... change it in any other way?"

She stared pointedly at him, and she could practically feel his irritation as he reopened the book next to him.

As Hermione waited, Draco's eyebrows knitted together. He flipped between two pages, looking left and right.

"Urgh, stupid book… is this the right syllabary?" He fiddled with it, flipping.

"Malfoy, you literally _just_ had it."

"I know, witch, this… this is a different edition. It doesn't even have the _livitriam_ root in it." He rolled his eyes, lugged the book off the table and checked the spine: _34th edition, 1825_.

As he plopped the book down and grabbed the slightly cleaner one next to it, his face dropped.

Hermione's eyes were wide. "Malfoy…"

With furrowed brows, he checked the newer spine: _35th edition, 184_ 0\. When he flipped to the same section, the appropriate definition, uses, and breakdown were all there in cramped ledges of text.

"If it's not in the older edition, but _is_ in that edition…"

Draco nodded. "It means this part of the charm has only existed since the 19th century."

"But I thought it hasn't been altered since its inception."

"It's possible that only the opening incantation was unaltered. Which means, if someone altered the ending part of the charm…"

"It had to happen after 1840, when this was published."

Draco heaved a sigh. "It's just as I thought—post-Enlightenment. That means I can stop looking at… pretty much most of these books. It eliminates all except the revival period, the pre-20th century departure from classical norms… ugh, thank _Merlin_."

"And before you search it, you can check to see when the book was published first," Hermione continued for him, her heart beating faster, "and maybe—can we eliminate certain parts of the world even? Narrow down the scope?"

Draco nodded. "Oils weren't as popular after the 1860s in eastern parts of Europe."

"So it had to be in the last hundred-and-fifty years, in Western Europe… "

"By someone with access to books like these," Draco cut in, his eyes growing, "So they had to either have connections to spellcrafters, or come from an upstanding family or a court… or work for the government. Likely the Department of Mysteries, or an equivalent in another ministry."

A bird chirped somewhere outside the gaping windows. The library was still. The late morning light had a filtered quality to it, illuminating the dust hovering lazily in the air. Hermione sighed, bathing in the familiar pleasure of discovery, where she untangled a web of information and landed in the right place.

Draco was smirking as well, not menacingly, but in a giddy sort of way. Their approaches were coming together.

* * *

While Malfoy continued with the library, carefully moving aside the bronze and marble statues to continue sorting the upper floor, Hermione dug into research on memory charms. After an hour of reading into _obliviate,_ she commanded those books to move aside; there wasn't as much crossover as she had hoped between deleting memories and sharing them. So she talked to the painted figures instead, under the assumption that she was interacting with figments of an artist's imagination.

In talking to the paintings, she could even perceive the skill of the artist. Figures that seemed vacant or one-dimensional suggested an amateurish execution, while the engaging figures indicated that the artist had great skill. For example, it seemed like the duchess didn't know how to do anything except for complain, and sometimes didn't even respond when asked direct questions. Compared to her, the alchemist was more lively—able to hold entire conversations without awkwardly scratching his beard or getting frazzled about things he didn't know.

Some paintings even had some self-awareness; Sir Galahad made references that he understood that he was a painting; however, his white-knight nature colored everything he did, and so that awareness only went so far.

When Malfoy came back to her side of the library and dropped into his stiff chair, clearly in need of a break, Hermione dismissed the books in front of the Dutch painting and faced him.

"There are some differences between traditional memories and those contained within a painting," she said. "For example, a memory is definitive: the story has already been written, and the content is the events, not the setting."

Draco sighed heavily, temple twitching. Sometimes Granger did that, where she started a conversation partway through a thought, as though he was supposed to know what she'd been thinking. It made what she said seem far-fetched initially, until he followed the loose thread back to her grander topic. Granger clearly assumed that everyone thought like this, and could just understand her when she started lecturing; no wonder she got so upset when people couldn't understand her. He briefly wondered if her interior monologue was so rich in substance that she didn't even realize this.

"Here's what I think: for a _fantasy_ , it's the setting that matters. Everything is a prop, meant to be the source of the viewer's own story. Or… something like that. That's why the environment is interactive, but doesn't change… did you notice that the grapes in the other painting don't disappear, even when you eat them?"

Draco wrinkled his nose beneath his hand. "Don't eat that stuff."

"Of course I didn't, I was talking about… ugh, never mind. I bet if Sir Hamilton ate his bread, it wouldn't disappear either."

"No one is eating that, not with Mr. Malfoy's shoddy repair," Sir Hamilton intoned swiftly. His Maltese was absent, likely trying to play with the sleepy cheetah, or dancing around the alchemist's knees as he conversed with the king and queen. Draco face disappeared behind his hand, eyebrows knotted together in effort.

"So that really does matter," Hermione mused. "I thought as much. The way in which something is painted matters, the artist's intention—"

"That's why I knew that painting a portrait of you wasn't going to work," Malfoy muttered, face still in his hand. "But no one bothered to listen, and I wasted _so much time_ on it…" and he continued grumbling until Hermione's mood soured. He'd breezed past the new information _she_ had come up with and insinuated that it was obvious. Apparently he thought that all she'd done was prove that his immature temper-tantrum at the prospect of painting her was valid.

"We didn't know _what_ was going to work," she retorted, "so don't pretend otherwise. And you were just fine with having a distraction from cleaning, so you wouldn't _'burn out.'_ One might even say you _enjoyed_ it."

Malfoy scoffed forcedly, with a kind of fabricated harshness that hinted at a wavering resolve. At least, Hermione would have thought so had it been anyone else, but with Malfoy she was never entirely sure.

She squinted at him; he wasn't meeting her eyes, just huffing every few seconds as he began clearing off his table, pushing around rolls of sketches and art history books. Emboldened by whatever she saw in his behavior, Hermione asked quietly, "Do you really think painting the portrait was a waste of time?"

"I mean, look at it," he muttered, gesturing towards the canvas. His air of diversion was suspicious, but Hermione peered over his shoulder anyway.

The unfinished portrait was resting low against the wall, the frame-less canvas bunching the filthy carpet into a makeshift doorstop.

Despite the amorphous blobs of shadows and highlights, the form in the center was vaguely starting to look like her. There were no facial details yet—just choppy washes of color above her neck—but every shape was carefully laid.

"That's the problem with other people painting you," Draco went on, still shuffling, "the version of you in the painting is always a figment of the artist's imagination. An interpretation of you, their version of you. It's never really _you_."

Hermione stared at the portrait now. It really did resemble her lines, her edges, but the face was entirely left blank, no shadows or details, just a swath of sienna. It looked like the sort of portrait she could stick her head into for a photo-op. If she put her face right in that hole, it made for a humorous scene: Hermione Granger, posing as the caricature of herself.

The details of the composition suddenly stood out. Why had Malfoy chosen that particular stance? Why was her hair pulled back, her shirt undone? Why the single candle? It was staged as a study scene, exactly how she would have staged her own portrait in fact, as reading was always her most comfortable pastime. But why had Malfoy thought to make it like this?

She vaguely recalled asking for a desk and a quill and ink, but why he interpreted the request this way was a mystery. A well-lit room with a window would have been just as convincing, just what she'd asked for. Or even a library or classroom scene. Why the dark, cramped room?

She realized that she was just gaping over Malfoy's shoulder in silence, and quickly averted her eyes. No one had ever painted her before, and she didn't know how to feel about it.

"Never really you," she echoed quietly.

"Only the best artists can bring something real out of their subjects, something true…" Malfoy trailed off, his voice inflecting, and finished quickly, "it's what makes Romaine Brooks so extraordinary."

Hermione watched him as he shuffled through his charcoal sketches, weighing them, his head cocked to the side.

"Romaine Brooks?" she asked.

He nodded. "Her portraits are the most deceptively complex I've ever seen. She really did capture the personality of her subjects. Talking to her models or the portraits, it's said that one couldn't tell the difference. Which is even more extraordinary, considering her painting style—very choppy, and using mostly cold greys."

He'd lost her a bit there, as he did sometimes—she didn't quite understand the nuances of the artistic voice and how individual styles impacted the enchantments—but she listened anyway, nodding with determination. Vaguely, she thought, how odd that Malfoy shared his favorite artist with her. In fact, it seemed strange to be talking to him like this, like he had never made her cry and she had never made him rush from the library with liquid fire behind his eyes. They were speaking like classmates working together on an assignment: did you read this bit here, oh yes, it's three turns counter-clockwise before you add the mandrake root, that must be where the transmogrification comes from.

Hermione longed for that simplicity without the other stuff—the confusion and hurt and anger and annoyance, always the annoyance brimming just below the surface. If she could only have the simple, mundane yet enjoyable actions associated with research, that quiet, reflective place of both taking in and translating information…

But they weren't there yet. She could fake it, pretend that she was unaffected, but she knew she wasn't and neither was he. She remembered her old plan: don't engage. Recognize when he acted like a prick to get her to argue so he could feel better about the situation.

"So the memory of her subjects was just very good?" she pressed.

Draco shrugged, tossing the sketches aside and standing. "Her most famous saying is this: as an artist, skill can be taught, paint can be bought, but empathy is the path to greatness." He scoffed again, as if he found the statement silly.

Hermione watched him as he cleared the table, levitated a painting just shorter than his full arm span, and walked it over to Hermione's wall.

The gallant knight made a noise in the back of his throat, as if annoyed, and it occurred to Hermione that the knight might like to sit in Adelaide's sitting room and converse with her, but despite being clean Draco had not chosen to hang his painting. It seemed almost purposeful. Was he punishing Galahad for his comment the other day? This explanation seemed the most likely, and Hermione rolled her eyes and summoned her books once more.

* * *

With the upper floor of the library now free of debris and all the books in swaying stacks, Draco sighed heavily. He took a moment to reflect on what he'd done, looking around at the pocked wooden floor and remaining shelves. He'd never done something so physical, that demanded both intensive mental and physical energy. The precision involved with cleaning the paintings was incredibly tiring, but the library required strength like he'd never exerted outside of quidditch practice.

Despite the menial work, he was somewhat relieved for the distraction. Staying busy, he was marginally protected from his own dark thoughts. It was pleasant to have a purpose again, to feel like he was living for a reason. After he'd spent months spiraling lower and lower into darkness, feeling suffocated by helplessness, he was finally feeling a sense of calm relief. The longer he organized the books or removed putrid varnish or spelled together broken frames, the less he felt shackled to it. It was almost like a class assignment at this point, and without the other aspects of his life as diversions, he felt like he could really focus.

Restoring oil paintings really did take immense concentration, but he felt like he was falling into a rhythm with it: he was learning how much pressure to apply to remove the dirt, how to identify what processes the painting needed, and what potions to brew that would react properly with the original varnish and glue. He was even getting better at the actual restoration—putting in just enough details where the damage was unnoticeable, or at least... charming, rather than ugly.

Not that interacting with the paintings was always easy. Being watched while doing precise restoration was new to him, and some of the paintings still sneered at him as he worked. Most of the finished paintings were simply moody with him, such as the alchemist or the pointy-hat wizard. Others seemed to actively hate him, like the snooty Sir Hamilton or the duchess in the chair. Even Galahad was pointedly ignoring him, which suited Draco just fine. He didn't need the knight's brand of self-righteous chivalry, at once condescending and naive. He was a true Gryffindor, that one.

Despite the distraction, cleaning wasn't the same thing as creating, and Draco found himself grudgingly looking over at his portrait of Granger more than a few times. As much as he'd tortured himself over having to paint her, towards the end he'd really gotten into it. If he could repaint it now, he would add more detail to her surroundings: a comfortable sofa perhaps, an open window... a plant or two.

But that nagging thought, of having to really _know_ her to properly execute the portrait... it made his stomach twist.

The other students were beginning to finish the structure of the castle; with the walls back up, the stairs repaired, and the majority of the facade solid once more, the volunteers were in full cleaning mode. Disposing of the destroyed furniture and magical objects within classrooms, dorms, common rooms, and bathrooms was the main pursuit. The elves were sending refuse away with snaps of their fingers, leaving the volunteers to sort through and distribute what remained. The facade team finally made it around to the giant gap in the library wall, and Hermione, Draco, and Terry Boot worked in silence, Terry replacing the stone bricks, Draco removing dirty varnish with tiny swirls of his cloth, and Hermione reading.

Malfoy was putting finishing repairs on the farmer painting; the painting had previously been immobile, but Draco sat in front of it with his eyes closed and wand raised for the better part of an hour, and soon the fields began to wave again, and the farmer's ho finally hit the dirt with a sharp thwack. Draco made his satisfied humming noise again and levitated the painting to the other side of the table.

"Thank you, Monsieur," the farmer croaked.

Back to his research, Draco was pleased to add more art history books to his stack, including a few that contained more detail about artisanal enchantments. He was getting closer to an answer, he could feel it.

Flipping open the next book, titled _19th Century French Artisandry_ , he settled and began to read.

* * *

Three days after her _livitriam_ discussion, Hermione awoke to the sounds of birds chirping.

She was finding her rhythm. Before, when she was lying awake for hours listening to waves crashing, she felt as though she was slowly coming apart at the seams. Now she had a routine. When she awoke, just before the sun scorched the edges of the book stacks, she traversed the paintings and had a quick wash in the fountain, maybe sparing a few pets for the lovable cheetah. When she was finished, she scanned her notes from the previous day and referenced her list of topics to dive deeper into.

By the time she heard the telltale shuffling of canvases that signaled Draco's arrival, she had an updated list of what she needed him to grab. Whether it was a book about Legilimency, photography, or a reference guide on Gamp's laws, or paintings that contained various objects, she needed his access to the library to make progress. While he grudgingly looked for her books, she worked on her theory, writing her unanswered questions in the margins of her notes. Then by the end of the day Draco departed, Ron or sometimes Neville paid her a visit, and then she drifted to sleep on the maiden's chaise.

If she wasn't on the beach or in the Dutch sitting room looking at research material, she could see Malfoy taking up her task of not only cleaning, but redesigning the library. She couldn't quite tell what he was doing yet, but the stacks of books were shuffled against the side wall, leaving a clear path through the leaning paintings and statues. He quickly filled the empty space with towering bookcases, likely duplicated from the cases that already existed; it was a questionable fix, but one that Hermione approved of nonetheless since the books were impossible to search through while in their towering stacks. Putting them on shelves, even temporarily, was an improvement.

He'd barely spoken to her except to discuss the painting charm, or to grudgingly answer her questions about charming art. Today was shaping up to be one of those days. He'd finished cleaning a few of the small paintings the previous night and was absently flipping pages of _19th Century French Artisandry_.

It was a long time before Hermione noticed that Draco had gone suspiciously quiet.

She looked over to find him staring at his book, eyes narrowed. For a moment she studied him—long strands of white-gold hair falling in his eyes, mouth set in a line.

"What is it?"

He stared for a long time at the page. Then, without lifting his gaze, he said, "...I found it."

* * *

 _Author's note (04/24/20):_ Hey everyone. I hope you're staying sane and safe at home. We're starting to get to the good stuff. Drop a review and let me know what you think!


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